[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                      TRACKING THE POSTAL SERVICE:
                      AN UPDATE ON THE DELIVERING
                            FOR AMERICA PLAN

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                   SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS 
                          AND THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE

                                 OF THE

                         COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                           AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 17, 2023

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-34

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]  


                       Available on: govinfo.gov
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                             __________
                             
                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
52-244 PDF                   WASHINGTON : 2024

_________________________________________________________________________
                             
                             
               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Ro Khanna, California
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Katie Porter, California
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Cori Bush, Missouri
Byron Donalds, Florida               Jimmy Gomez, California
Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota        Shontel Brown, Ohio
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
William Timmons, South Carolina      Robert Garcia, California
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Maxwell Frost, Florida
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Becca Balint, Vermont
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Greg Casar, Texas
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Dan Goldman, New York
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina        Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nick Langworthy, New York
Eric Burlison, Missouri

                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
                      Bill Womack, Senior Advisor
               Lauren Hassett, Professional Staff Member
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                                 ------                                

    Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce

                     Pete Sessions, Texas, Chairman
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Ranking 
Clay Higgins, Louisiana                  Minority Member
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Byron Donalds, Florida                   Columbia
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Greg Casar, Texas
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Robert Garcia, California
Chuck Edwards, North Carolina        Becca Balint, Vermont
Eric Burlison, Missouri              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
                                     Jasmine Crockett, Texas
                        
                        
                        C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Hearing held on May 17, 2023.....................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

The Honorable Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General, United States 
  Postal Service
Oral Statement...................................................     6

Written opening statements and the statement for the witness are 
  available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document 
  Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * Article, Government Executive, ``Postal Police Won a 
  Grievance, but They're Unlikely to Patrol''; submitted by Rep. 
  Balint.

  * Article, National Interest, ``Stop Fentanyl Shippers From 
  Exploiting the U.S. Postal System''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Report, GAO, May 2022, ``CBP Could Improve How It Categorizes 
  Drug Seizure Data and Evaluates Training''; submitted by Rep. 
  Biggs.

  * Article, KeepUSPosted.org, ``Keep US Posted Challenges Stamp 
  Hikes with New Analysis Ahead of Congressional Hearing''; 
  submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Letter, from Keep US Posted to Rep. Sessions and Rep. Mfume, 
  May 17, 2023; submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Report, NDP Analytics, ``The USPS Strategic Plan, Delivering 
  for America: An Evaluation of Key Metrics and 
  Vulnerabilities''; submitted by Rep. Connolly.

  * Letter, to Postmaster General DeJoy from Rep. Mfume, Rep. 
  Connolly, and Rep. Raskin, May 16, 2023; submitted by Rep. 
  Mfume.

  * Statement for the Record, Coalition for a 21st Century Postal 
  Service; submitted by Rep. Sessions.

  * Rep. Connolly Statement for the Record; submitted by Rep. 
  Connolly.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. DeJoy; submitted by Rep. 
  Sessions.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. DeJoy; submitted by Rep. 
  Burlison.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. DeJoy; submitted by Rep. 
  Mfume.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. DeJoy; submitted by Rep. 
  Casar.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. DeJoy; submitted by Rep. 
  Lynch.

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                      TRACKING THE POSTAL SERVICE:
                      AN UPDATE ON THE DELIVERING
                            FOR AMERICA PLAN

                              ----------                              


                        Wednesday, May 17, 2023

                        House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

                 Subcommittee on Government Operations
                       and the Federal Workforce

                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Pete Sessions 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Sessions, Palmer, Higgins, Biggs, 
Timmons, Burchett, Boebert, Fry, Edwards, Burlison, Mfume, 
Norton, Frost, Casar, Connolly, Stansbury, Garcia, Balint, Lee, 
and Crockett.
    Also present: Representatives Comer, Duncan, Mace, 
LaTurner, Barragan, Raskin, and Lynch.
    Mr. Sessions. Good morning. The Subcommittee on Government 
Operations and the Federal Workforce will come to order, and I 
would like to welcome everybody to this important Subcommittee 
hearing.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    We also have a number of Members who are seeking to be 
waved on today's hearing. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, as well as Ms. Mace from South 
Carolina, both Members of the full Committee on Oversight and 
Accountability, will be waved in today.
    Also, we have the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. 
Duncan, a Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who has 
asked to be a part of this today, as well as the gentleman from 
California, Mr. Barragan, will be waved on the Subcommittee for 
the purpose of questioning today's hearing.
    Mr. Duncan. It is Ms. Barragan.
    Mr. Sessions. Excuse me, it is. Thank you. Ms. Barragan.
    And I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening 
statement.
    First of all, let me welcome our Postmaster General. The 
General and I spent some time last week where we were preparing 
the testimony and the operational needs of today, and I found 
that the Postmaster General is very open and very thankful for 
the opportunity of the legislation that was passed last year on 
a bipartisan basis not only from the House of Representatives, 
but also U.S. Senate, and signed by the President of the United 
States.
    This is a 10-year plan. It is a 10-year plan that has 
goals. It has understandings, and I told the Postmaster General 
that while there will be people, including myself, that have 
issues and ideas with the Postal Service, that we believe that 
the plan that has begun, that he is responsible for 
implementing and will be held accountable for that. Not just by 
meeting with us in this Subcommittee, but also the full 
Committee and as he runs into Members of Congress, there will 
be people that provide him feedback.
    But nonetheless, in May 2020, Louis DeJoy became our 
Postmaster General, and I appreciate him for his service. His 
background of running large operations has become apparent. His 
ability to effectively grab this issue is important.
    He inherited a Postal Service that was some 60 days away 
from running out of cash, an organization in desperate need of 
modernization. Since his arrival, he has taken that issue on. 
Obviously, when you are doing this, you need a plan. You need a 
plan that you are willing to tell people you are a part of, 
your employees that you are a part of, and work with your 
employees and the American public to make happen.
    He has been before this Committee. He has been forthright 
of his desire to try and do the things that are in not only the 
Postal Service's best interest, but also the American people. 
And we appreciate him being here.
    I think it is important to remember that the Postal Service 
is subject to economic and market forces about as much as any 
organization in this country. It stretches across this country. 
Fuel prices, labor issues, the things that--growth and the 
changes in marketplace are all part of what this Postmaster 
General has to work with while maintaining the delivery of 
mail, which is the mission of the Post Office.
    So, a lot of things are not necessarily their fault, but 
they are part of conditions that happen. So, I happen to see 
progress, and I express my confidence in not only the 
Postmaster General to continue on his plan. Because he believes 
that if he does this, it will lead to better outcomes that are 
stated as goals in the legislation.
    But really, I appreciate his tenacity to be forthright 
about addressing problems. The General knows that today there 
are going to be Members of Congress who are going to provide 
him important feedback. Feedback, some that represent 
communities that are in growth and others that are in demise. 
Things that are problematic to your employees, we hear about 
those, too, General. But we know that you are the right man for 
the job, and I appreciate you taking time to be before this 
Subcommittee, willing to stay at the table, willing to listen, 
and willing to learn both ways, us from you and you from us.
    So, we appreciate you being here and hearing from us.
    I now would recognize the Ranking Member, the gentleman 
from Maryland, for the purpose of making an opening statement.
    Mr. Mfume. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
    Good morning to my colleagues. Good morning, Mr. DeJoy.
    I want to thank Chair Sessions for jointly convening this. 
I think it is extremely important that we have a chance to talk 
and to follow up on a number of things that concern Members of 
this Committee with respect to the United States Postal 
Service.
    As we convene today's Subcommittee on Government Operations 
and the Workforce, I want to emphasize the latter half of that 
title of that name, the Federal Workforce. Last week, 
Congressman Connolly of this Committee, Congressman 
Fitzpatrick, and myself co-led a resolution designating the 
week to honor our Nation's public servants, including postal 
workers all across America and even in our own congressional 
districts.
    So, thank you for keeping the Government running, all of 
you who are Federal workers. Your hard work, your sacrifices do 
not go unrecognized by this Committee.
    The former Chair of this Subcommittee continuously led 
valiant efforts to acknowledge and to appreciate our public 
servants and is a fierce defender and supporter of the Federal 
work force. Congressman Connolly, I just want to say to him--
and I know most of you join me in saying that the attack on his 
staff earlier this week is weighing heavily on his mind. It is 
weighing heavily on the minds of all of us. Whether we are 
Democrats or Republicans, we are all equally devastated by the 
senseless violence that occurred, and we are all praying for 
his team's speedy recoveries.
    Mr. DeJoy, welcome back to this Committee. The last time 
you were here, we were all masked up, as we all remember. And 
although we have had our differences in the past, I am looking 
forward to a fruitful discussion this morning.
    Throughout the pandemic, Baltimore, which I represent, and 
much of Maryland's Seventh congressional District had the worst 
on-time delivery in the Nation by far. Now that mail delivery 
is improving, Maryland is experiencing one of the worst spikes 
in mail theft, particularly in Bethesda, Potomac, and Chevy 
Chase, Maryland.
    Moreover, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service reports that 
robberies of postal carriers have increased by 78 percent, 
resulting in nearly 500 robberies alone in 2022, which I find 
absolutely amazing. Most of us grew up in an America where 
postal carriers were not being robbed.
    Criminals who commit robberies of Postal Service letter 
carriers are specifically, we believe, looking for one thing--
the so-called ``arrow keys,'' which grant access to most 
mailboxes across an entire zip code associated with that key. 
This provides bad actors with ample opportunities to steal 
checks and to rewrite them to withdraw excessive amounts of 
money from a victim's bank account and further victimizes mail 
recipients to other potential crimes.
    So, we are here for a number of things, but we are also 
here about this. I am concerned about the thousands of dollars 
that a single family could lose if a check is stolen and 
oftentimes is. And I am concerned about the safety of our hard-
working postal carriers by senseless criminals who we have to 
find, prosecute, and send off to jail.
    Now to cut these costs, the Postal Service, as I 
understand, has increased its reliability on the private sector 
to deliver mail. The results, for lack of a better term, have 
proven to be--and I do not use this lightly--results have often 
been fatal. In the past three years alone, third-party trucking 
companies have been involved in 68 fatal crashes, which have 
cost the lives of 79 people.
    We expect that the Postal Service will take its job 
seriously to deliver our mail securely and safely, and yet it 
appears that the Postal Service cannot guarantee fully the 
safety of individuals and, in some instances, seems to have 
prioritized cost-saving strategies above the safety that I have 
just mentioned and the people who have lost their lives through 
these third-party carriers.
    Our postal carriers must be assured that their employer, 
which is you, Mr. DeJoy, is implementing all strategies and 
focusing all resources necessary to ensure the safety of its 
carriers and the timeliness of the mail that they are charged 
with delivering. That is why Ranking Member Raskin, Congressman 
Connolly, and myself sent a letter to the Postmaster General 
requesting the Postal Service's detailed response to this 
alarming threat that we are all facing, and particularly that 
600,000 postal employees could possibly face who are just doing 
their job.
    And so, Mr. Chair, I would ask unanimous consent that we 
submit that letter for the record.
    Mr. Sessions. Without objection, it will be entered in the 
record.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you, sir.
    I look forward, Mr. DeJoy, to all of your responses today.
    Since the USPS 2021 implementation of the 10-year plan, 
that we all had a lot of discourse and discussion around, 54 
million Americans entrusted their Postal Service to deliver 
just last year their mid-term election ballots securely, on 
time, per first-class standards, which is now classified within 
one to five days. And while the Postal Service delivered 99 
percent of mail-in ballots on time, we are still concerned that 
640,000 arrived late.
    Now we can quibble over whether or not 99 percent or 100 
percent is the goal. I just know that it is a tough job, and I 
want to commend the men and women that took that seriously, 
because there was a lot of concern about whether or not those 
ballots would be delivered as they should be.
    Congress has stepped in, as we all know, to address the 
financial challenges through the enactment of the bipartisan 
Postal Reform Act of 2022, which, fortunately, provided 
significant financial relief to the Postal Service and 
eliminated many of the archaic requirements to prefund Postal 
Service retiree health benefits and moved postal retirees into 
Medicare.
    So, there is a lot that we want to talk about. Mr. DeJoy, I 
want to, again, in advance thank you for your testimony, for 
your appearance here. I am looking forward to hearing more 
about those things and many of the other things that many of us 
on this Committee may not be aware of.
    The Chair and I are also charged with conducting true and 
meaningful oversight. So, I would implore you to overcome the 
challenges that you face by sharing with us as much as you can 
so that we might be partners in that process.
    I want to thank the Chair, and I want to yield back any 
time that I would have remaining.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Mr. 
Mfume, thank you very much.
    We do need to remember that today is about the men and 
women, the veterans, the people who are part of, not just the 
Postal Service, but support the Postal Service. We also need to 
remember our friends in the Capitol Hill Police, who are 
providing us the safety that we need.
    But with that said, I would like to yield for the gentleman 
the time he would need, the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. 
Connolly, who is a Member of this Committee and Subcommittee, 
for any remarks he would like to make. The gentleman is 
recognized.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And let me thank you and my friend, Mr. Mfume, for the 
heartfelt comments.
    And I just want to take a moment to thank all of my 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I have been here 15 
years, and I do not think I have ever experienced just the 
collapse of partisanship over a human issue. And I cannot tell 
you how much I and my staff appreciate that. Talking with 
Hakeem Jeffries, talking with Kevin McCarthy, talking with 
Steve Scalise, and so many, many colleagues offering to help 
and express support for an unprovoked violent incident.
    And Mr. DeJoy, one of the heroes in this story was actually 
the postman. He came to the office while the attack was going 
on, and it startled the assailant, and that allowed the woman 
who was being beaten on the head to escape. And he is sort of 
an unsung hero in our story.
    So, I just want to express that gratitude to my colleagues 
on both sides of the aisle for their consideration and very 
sympathetic response to what is a very difficult situation.
    Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
    Mr. Sessions. Congressman Connolly, thank you very much. 
And as you know, there are people on this Committee who have 
expressed sorrow for what happened, but we also today 
recognize, Mr. DeJoy, one of your own may have saved what could 
have been a worse circumstance. So, thank you very much.
    Mr. Burchett. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Chairman? Over here. I may 
be out of order. Would it be inappropriate to offer a prayer up 
for those in Brother Connolly's office that were injured? Would 
that be appropriate or not?
    Mr. Sessions. If the gentleman would wish to make a 
statement, I will recognize the gentleman.
    Mr. Burchett. All right. Well, my statement will be a 
prayer. If you want to bow your head, that is fine.
    Dear Lord, we thank you for this body. We thank you for the 
men and women that are here. We ask your healing hands upon 
these folks that were injured in Brother Connolly's office, and 
we ask that, the Great Physician that you are, that you heal 
them in body, soul, and spirit.
    And we thank you for everything you have given us, Lord. In 
Christ's name, I pray. Amen.
    Mr. Sessions. Amen. And thank you. And I thank the 
gentleman. The gentleman yields back his time.
    I would like to, if I can, before we welcome the Postmaster 
General, to acknowledge the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. 
Comer, the gentleman from Kentucky. Mr. Chairman, thank you for 
being here today and for your instructive nature that you began 
from the time you were Ranking Member to Chairman of providing 
the confidence to the Postal Service that we can work on these 
issues.
    Also, the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin. I want to 
thank the Ranking Member and thank him for taking time to be 
here for this important time.
    Louis DeJoy was appointed the 75th Postmaster General of 
the United States and Chief Executive Officer of the U.S. 
Postal Service in June 2020. Prior to becoming Postmaster 
General, he had 35 years of experience managing a successful 
nationwide logistics company. Postmaster DeJoy developed the 
Delivering for America plan, which is signed into law, a 10-
year improvement plan to make the Postal Service financially 
stable without compromising its mission to deliver mail. As a 
matter of fact, in the legislation, there are very specific 
goals that have been established that the General is aware of.
    So, I want to thank him for being here today. Pursuant to 
Committee Rule 9(g), the witness will now please rise and raise 
their right hand.
    Mr. DeJoy, welcome. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that 
the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
    [Response.]
    Mr. Sessions. Let the record reflect that the gentleman--
our witness answered in the affirmative.
    Mr. DeJoy, thank you. We appreciate you being here today 
and look forward to your testimony. Let me remind the witness 
that we have read your written statement, and it will appear in 
the full record.
    Please limit your oral testimony to five minutes because, I 
assure you, you will be here until probably 2 [o'clock] this 
afternoon to answer our questions. And as a reminder, please 
press the button on the microphone in front of you so that it 
is on, and the Members can hear you.
    And we ask that you would, as the Members do, politely 
confine your comments to those things, and then when the light 
comes back on, we will ask that you finish those questions.
    I recognize the Postmaster General for his opening 
statement. The gentleman is now recognized for five minutes.

                     STATEMENT OF HON. LOUIS DEJOY

                           POSTMASTER GENERAL

                          U.S. POSTAL SERVICE

    Mr. DeJoy. Thank you, Chairman Sessions and Ranking Member 
Mfume, Chairman Comer, Ranking Member Raskin. Thank you for 
having me today to appear before the Committee for an update on 
the Delivering for America plan.
    I have submitted as part of my written testimony our 
recently released two-year DFA progress report, which contains 
good news on our progress concerning DFA and the PSRA 
implementation. It highlights that simultaneously with 
transforming the organization, we have improved our service, 
stabilized our work force, expanded our capacity, started to 
modernize our nationwide network, and just two years into a 10-
year plan, we have cut in half our projected financial losses.
    When I arrived here in June 2020, besides being in the 
middle of a pandemic and in a highly sensationalized political 
environment, the financial, operational, and organizational 
condition of the Postal Service had so deteriorated that its 
continued ability to serve the Nation was in significant 
jeopardy. The perilous condition was the result of 15 years of 
posturing, complacency, legislation, regulation, misplaced 
actions, and inactions that focused on narrow, parochial 
interests and that failed to confront the cataclysmic events 
that faced the Postal Service.
    This collective failure accumulated to produce the 
catastrophic consequence the organization was then facing. Most 
surprisingly, nowhere to be found was any comprehensive plan to 
put the Postal Service on the right track for the future, even 
though the alarms and bells had been ringing for more than a 
decade.
    I was aware of these conditions when I accepted the 
Postmaster General position, offered by a bipartisan Board of 
Governors who had a charge to fix the Postal Service. So why am 
I bringing these conditions up now? I want to ensure that we 
have our eyes wide open about the magnitude of the problem that 
we need to fix, that we acknowledge the reasons why it is so 
imperative that we make the kind of significant, transformative 
changes that are outlined in the Delivering for America plan 
and that we remain vigilant not to repeat those mistakes of the 
past.
    So, how have we done so far? In a very difficult 
environment during the pandemic, facing extreme demands for 
service and at the height of our financial and operational 
erosion, I worked in tandem with my leadership team and with 
the support of our Board of Governors to develop and introduce 
the Delivering for America plan, and we all got working on it.
    Today, we are in a substantially better position than we 
were just over two years ago. We have made great success 
pursuing the objectives of the DFA plan, and our whole 
organization is energetically and collaboratively deploying 
professional tactics that will continue to improve our 
operational precision, reduce our cost of performance, increase 
our service reliability, grow our revenue, and provide long-
term, enjoyable career paths for all our employees.
    Some specific accomplishments I would like to highlight are 
as follows. Since the release of the plan, service has improved 
to where 98 percent of the population receives their mail and 
packages within three days. First-class mail and packages take 
an average of 2 1/2 days from origin to destination.
    The Postal Service has delivered on two successful peak 
seasons and worked successfully with the Biden Administration 
and Health and Human Services to deliver 700 million COVID test 
kits to the American public. These accomplishments demonstrate 
our ability to quickly ramp up to meet the critical delivery 
needs of our Nation for both commercial purposes and in our 
Government capacity and in response to national and local 
emergencies as part of the country's critical infrastructure.
    We have delivered excellent performance on every election, 
including the highly energized 2020 election, which took place 
when I first arrived. In that regard, we admirably have 
fulfilled our role on multiple occasions as part of the 
Nation's electoral process whenever election officials or 
voters chose to utilize us.
    We have improved the quality of our career prospects for 
our work force by converting over 125,000 employees from pre-
career to full time, and we have improved the quality of their 
work lives by implementing enhancements to their workplaces and 
working conditions to help our employees to succeed so they can 
help us to achieve success.
    And most importantly, we are a different organization with 
a different leadership and management team that is deploying 
robust and comprehensive strategies that will continue to 
sponsor our improvement and transform our culture to one that 
leads us to world-class performance. And I am very proud of the 
accomplishments of our management team, our board, our union 
and management association leaders, and the women and men of 
the United States Postal Service.
    I am also excited to continue our work together to finish 
what we have started, bringing new life to our cherished 
organization and tackling the remaining problems we have so we 
can continue to serve the American people for another 250 
years.
    Chairman Sessions, Ranking Member Mfume, and Members of the 
Committee, I thank you for your support, and I look forward to 
answering the Committee's questions.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. DeJoy, thank you very much.
    I believe your opening statement and the conversations, 
which you openly have with not only all Members of Congress, 
but in particular this Subcommittee and those who have waved 
on, is important to note that there are many of these factors 
that seemingly come into your purview that are difficult tasks, 
but some that require personal attention and a continued part 
of your plan.
    It is not lost on any of us that there are economic 
conditions that impede your ability to make changes, but there 
are also day-to-day operational issues, which we believe need 
to be addressed. Today, you are going to hear from Members of 
Congress who bring to you and your team very specific examples 
of items.
    I have had, within the congressional district that I am 
elected to represent--in Travis County, Texas, which is 
Austin--for my entire service in Texas, 17 problems. And they 
seem to be around what would be friendly to a robber or a 
thief, these large, effective for your service to handle a 
neighborhood, but make themselves a target.
    Can you provide me or this Subcommittee with any insight 
into how you view these large mailboxes that--and I am not sure 
what you call them. But these large areas that then can be 
broken into and hundreds of packages can be stolen. And then 
that, correspondingly, the need to have people in those areas 
have to go to the post office, stand in line, and then the 
replacement therein.
    This is a part of the crime problem that you have to deal 
with. Sir, do you have any comment about that specific area?
    Mr. DeJoy. I do. I do. So, you are referring to what we 
would call cluster boxes, which were decided in 2012 by the 
organization, to put into newly developing areas as our mail 
volume was coming down significantly. It was the beginning of 
the--right after the Great Recession. We were losing $10 
billion a year, and the management was looking for ways of 
continuing to get mail into communities but start to limit the 
amount of travel a carrier had to do to get the mail there 
because the volume was dropping significantly.
    Cluster boxes were effective for mail, and effective at a 
time when crime was less. We are evaluating--and it is a 
continuing, it is probably the largest number of phone calls I 
actually get about neighborhoods who want post boxes instead of 
cluster boxes. This is something that we will look at as we 
move forward and a big part of our delivery business becomes 
package-oriented also.
    But they are targets, just like the blue box is a target. 
Just like any access to our system is, in fact, a target we 
need to defend again. We are looking at different types of 
double validation in keys, because of stealing the locks, 
stealing our keys has been an ongoing problem for a number of 
years, and we are addressing that now. Forty thousand new locks 
coming into play. That will be tied to our carriers' handheld 
device for double validation, and it could also be turned off.
    So that is some of it. We are looking at hardening our 
boxes. But some of these they take chainsaws to. I mean, it is 
pretty deliberate.
    But we recognize and I recognize that our success is the 
ability of people to conduct commerce through the Postal 
Service, and crime and lawlessness has always been throughout 
history a deterrent to commerce. And we are looking at a number 
of ways of trying to address both the residential appeal of 
having a cluster box or not, which is strictly for commercial 
purposes from our standpoint, or from the safety and sanctity 
of the mail and the people and our carriers.
    So, it is something we briefed a committee of Congress last 
week on some of the initiatives that we are rolling out, and 
that is going to be become an expanding part of our daily 
discussions is how do we--how do we address this?
    I would ask that much of this has to do with the attention 
to the crime, that the crime gets when we do, in fact, catch 
people. Mail crime is not--although it is a Federal crime, it 
is not one of the things prosecutors run to prosecute, and all 
of this plays into the whole situation that creates the really 
increasing nature of these happenings.
    Mr. Sessions. General, thank you. I believe that your 
insistence on being open about the discussion of this issue, 
your openness to the frailties that are perceived not only by 
local law enforcement, but also making sure that we get to a 
better answer, will help us get there. And I appreciate your 
discussion.
    I will be pleased to stay with you on this issue. I thank 
the gentleman.
    I now would yield five minutes to the gentleman, Mr. Mfume, 
the Ranking Member of this Subcommittee.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. DeJoy, I want to go back to the announcement of steps 
to reduce postal crime that the Postal Service announced last 
week, and a key part of that is the replacement of the so-
called arrow locks, which are the kind of blue box skeleton key 
that I talked about earlier.
    I am glad to hear that somebody is thinking now about a 
double validation effort. Can you tell me or this Committee, in 
addition to that, though, are there other safety measures that 
are being thought of, electronically or otherwise, that might 
get us to where we need to be? Even if it is thumbprint 
recognition by carriers.
    Mr. DeJoy. So, one of the things that we are doing is 
looking at ways of hardening our boxes, and that is we have 
11,000 new ones that are rolling out this summer. And we are 
looking at buying another 20,000 coming forward. That will just 
harden the access, and we will also have these new entry 
devices, combination entry devices.
    We are exploring, with regard to the key, another option 
that kind of makes the--I forget which one it is--so either the 
box dumb or the key dumb on a daily basis, and then we--through 
electronic communication, we revalidate the entry process of 
the--of the key.
    So, our engineering team, along with our retail and 
delivery team, are working, and it is up--you know, I get 
briefed on it, a number of different options to prevent basic 
key access, which is a lot. And key access, the--a big reason 
for some of the carrier, the crime against carriers is to 
actually steal--steal the key.
    I mean, these keys are on the dark web for $5,000, $6,000, 
$7,000 a key, you know, to purchase the key. So, we need to 
race through getting out of those. This delivery that is coming 
through right now, I signed off on about a year ago. We have 
had supply chain issues in getting, you know, this equipment 
into the marketplace.
    But those are the two big things, the keys and hardening 
the device itself, the collection boxes. We have--with this 
recent announcement, we have put teams out into the community, 
into several communities to surveil and work with local law 
enforcement to try and make sure that we identify hotspot areas 
that we know have been frequently, repetitively throughout the 
year, we have had locations that have been, you know, attacked 
over five times, six times a year.
    So, working that and working with our employees and 
communities, asking people to be more alert to these things.
    Mr. Mfume. And let me ask you. I mentioned earlier in my 
opening remarks the trouble that we have been experiencing in 
Baltimore, both in terms of delivery, which has started to ebb 
somewhat, but also in terms of these attacks on postal 
employees. And then I had mentioned particularly in other 
places in Maryland, like Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac, a new 
increase going on.
    Can you give us a sense of when you expect to have all of 
these locks installed, and how you are doing that? Is it based 
on the crime figures? Is it based on the region? Or is it based 
on something else that you are getting from postal carriers?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes. So, we--the quantity of locations that we 
have boxes is in the millions, and the delivery--I mean, we 
are--the delivery pace is very dependent on the supply chain. 
So, this is a several-year project to get--to tighten up 
everything the way we need to do it.
    And it won't--it's not going to be complete without some 
combined effort on reducing crime in these particular areas. 
With regard to how and where they go, it is interesting. Postal 
crime does not necessarily match all the time what community 
crime is.
    Areas where there tends to be more high value in postal 
boxes is where these trained thieves and lawbreakers go. With 
some sophisticated processes, they even reroute mail in many 
cases. So, that is something. Inspection Service works in a 
very detailed manner with our delivery units, and we have good 
visibility on crime and incidents that happen and also the--it 
will take several years to get to a place where you and I would 
both be happy with it.
    Mr. Mfume. Just one other thing because my time is running 
short. I had mentioned earlier that Ranking Member Raskin, 
myself, Mr. Connolly, had written this letter to you, which I 
assume you received, because we are really concerned about the 
600,000 postal employees who are just trying to do their job, 
who are coming up against all sorts of violence. I do not know 
that in the last 48 hours, you have had a chance to put 
together or cobble together a response. But off the cuff, could 
you just speak and tell us as a preview, what you think that 
response might look like?
    Mr. DeJoy. Sir, to be honest with you, I was not in the 
office yesterday when it came in, and I have not had a chance 
to really digest it. So, I would hesitate to give a response. 
But in general, with regards to crime and protecting our 
employees, I, too, am very concerned about the exposure of our 
employees to the criminal aspects that are occurring throughout 
the Nation. We----
    Mr. Mfume. Mr. DeJoy, my time is up. But can you tell us 
when we might expect that?
    Mr. DeJoy. Quickly.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you. OK.
    Mr. DeJoy. Ten days, less than 10 days.
    Mr. Mfume. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you 
very much for the direct question, direct answer.
    The gentleman, the young gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. 
Burchett, is now recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. I 
appreciate your all's leadership on this issue. I consider you 
all both good folks and good friends.
    Mr. DeJoy, I think the last time we talked, I yelled at 
you. So, I will try not to do that this time. I am very 
passionate about my constituents and the problems that they are 
having. And thank you for being here.
    I want to start by discussing some issues my constituents 
continue to have with the United States Postal Service. These 
are folks in Knoxville, and they cannot get mail picked up or 
delivered for over a week. In some instances, businesses cannot 
send invoices and receive payments. And since I have been in 
Congress, it just seems to progressively get worse. I do not 
know if that is due to my leadership or what, but mail delays 
are hurting families and small businesses in our community.
    How is the Delivering for America plan addressing service 
performance?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, sir, first of all, I am not aware of the 
particular problems in Knoxville, but I can give you a 
description of where we have issues or how they are happening. 
But I will say the Delivering for America plan is having a 
tremendously positive impact on mail delivery.
    Today, 98 percent--as I said in my opening remarks, 98 
percent of the American population, 98 percent receive their 
mail and packages within three days. Fifty percent of the 
mail--first-class mail and packages--get delivered a day in 
advance. So, we have--when I got here, the network is what was 
really holding up and--you know?
    And when you look at next-day, a day late on the service 
standards that we have, if you are a day late, it is 99 percent 
of mail and packages get delivered.
    Now, we have our retail--our retail--we fixed a lot in the 
network. It is costly, but we fixed it, and it is running, and 
everything is--everything is moving. There is no longer a 
``tail of the mail,'' which was about 10 days when I got here. 
Our retail and delivery networks throughout the land were the 
most impacted by the pandemic and where--I mean, they're 
massive, 31,000 retail centers, 19,000 delivery units, almost 
300,000 carriers going to 165 million delivery points.
    The more certain--so this is an area where we had a 
tremendous amount of turnover, changing population habits. More 
people moved into the mountains. More people are working from 
home. Some small post offices had their delivery addresses 
triple in 18 months, triple. And we have been racing to, you 
know, to staff and to clean up some operational habits that 
developed throughout the pandemic, and we are going to--we are 
going to get there.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. Let me ask a few more questions, if I 
may, and it goes on what you said. You said that they are 
increasing these things. But the Postal Service has built out 
capacity of 60 million packages a day, yet you only carry 28 
million a day. Can you explain why the Postal Service sees so 
much excess capacity at a time when volume continues to 
decline?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes. So, if you remember in 2020, in the fall of 
2020, the peak of 2020, where we had millions of packages 
running around the Nation for weeks before they actually got 
delivered, that was because we lacked any type of capacity. The 
30 million packages we were doing, we were using, were mostly 
being done by hand. We had--so a lot of inefficiencies there.
    We had to come up with a methodology quickly to not 
experience that again the next peak, and one of the ways we did 
it was to create annex locations and put 250 sorting machines 
in it. And it is a geographical span. So, we are looking at the 
yield. We have to cover the area. Does not mean that we are 
running them, but if we got that many packages, 60 million, we 
could process them.
    There is peaks and valleys of volume. So----
    Mr. Burchett. Let me interrupt you. I am going to run out 
of time, and I see where you are headed with this. But could 
you give us a brief explanation of hardship delivery, and what 
percentage of hardship delivery requests are approved?
    Mr. DeJoy. I would have to get back to you on that.
    Mr. Burchett. Could you get back to me on that, please?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Burchett. It seems like everybody in the industry is 
forging ahead with--in this economic environment, they put a 
pause on expanding operations. But the Post Office, the Postal 
Service continues to move ahead with investments in new 
equipment and facilities. Are you getting your money's worth 
for those investments, and who is paying for them? Is there an 
expected timeline for a return on this investment?
    And I am out of time.
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, so, yes, there is a timeline. We plan to 
roll out a new network over the next three to five years is 
what our strategy. And we have a tremendous, embedded 
infrastructure that has been significantly deteriorated. We 
have deferred maintenance of $6 billion, $7 billion. And this 
is really what the expansion is.
    And at the end of--when we get done with this, right now, 
we have 400 locations that we move mail and packages across the 
Nation in. We are going to move that into 60, into 60 
locations. We are just going to be consolidating.
    So, we will get--you know, we spend--we are getting our 
money. We have to execute, and that is another thing. The 
increased yield to 60 million is the operation. The 
organization is operating more professionally with more 
organized manner because we have to compete with the commercial 
marketplace to get our package business.
    But yes, I'm pretty confident that we have a very 
deliberate process. We have a long-term plan that sets 
parameters that we work through and guide. And our investments 
are reviewed and competed. We are not the same bureaucratic-
type of organization we were in the past because we have to 
move. If I do not get this done, if we do not get this done in 
a short timeframe, we are going to run out of money.
    Mr. Burchett. All right. I have run over my time. I 
apologize, Mr. Chairman. If you can have your folks get back to 
me this time, I would appreciate that.
    Mr. DeJoy. I will do that. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Burchett. And I won't yell at you. Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    The distinguished gentleman and Ranking Member of the 
Committee, the gentleman, Mr. Raskin, is recognized for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for calling 
this important hearing.
    Mr. DeJoy, more than 2,000 postal carriers have been 
assaulted or robbed since 2020, and the Postal Service 
announced just last week that 305 have been targeted since or 
in the first half of Fiscal Year 2023. So, these incidents, 
according to the Postal Service, are increasingly becoming more 
prevalent. The problem is getting more serious.
    And yet, despite this increase in crime targeting letter 
carriers, the Postal Service's announced actions last week to 
address postal crime seem to me to be very light on proactive 
protection for letter carriers. The Postal Service's proposal 
focuses on hardening physical infrastructure, which is, of 
course, helpful in terms of preventing mail theft, but it 
really doesn't do anything to help keep the postal workers 
safer when they are out on the rounds.
    One option seemed noticeably absent from the plan that 
would both reduce mail theft and protect the postal workers, 
which is to allow postal police officers to protect the letter 
carriers by not confining them solely to the physical 
facilities of the Post Office.
    For more than 50 years, the postal police officers have 
been responsible for protecting customers, property, and 
employees. But on August 25, 2020, the Postal Service abruptly 
declared that postal police officers would no longer be allowed 
to perform patrols to prevent mail theft or to protect letter 
carriers unless the theft or violation takes place directly on 
Postal Service premises.
    And that just seems baffling to me. Prior to this point, 
the postal police performed their duties wherever mail theft 
would occur.
    So, Mr. Postmaster, given the increase in attacks on letter 
carriers that we are hearing about and seeing within our 
districts and the increase in postal theft, why has the Postal 
Service continued to prevent postal police officers from doing 
their jobs and keeping postal workers and our mail safe by 
traveling to wherever the problem is taking place?
    Mr. DeJoy. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman, Ranking 
Member.
    First thing, with regard to the things that we are doing 
right now, our carriers travel in the line of crime. So, if we 
reduce crime at these particular locations, we lose the 
availability to commit crime by stopping the arrow key, 
hardening the boxes, they will--they will venture into less of 
these types of activities. And that is one of the reasons that 
we are looking at proceeding in this manner.
    With regard to the postal----
    Mr. Raskin. Could I just follow up on that then? I mean, it 
seems to me that it is a little counterintuitive if the 
officers are assigned just to the physical station----
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes.
    Mr. Raskin [continuing]. And it becomes clear that the 
letter carriers are exposed----
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes.
    Mr. Raskin [continuing]. That will deepen their 
vulnerability to being attacked, robbed on the road, assaulted, 
and so on.
    Mr. DeJoy. So, with regard to the postal police, I mean, I 
travel the Nation. I enjoy my interactions with the postal 
police. They are awesome. And if I had 60,000 of them, I would 
come to you and ask for the authority to do what you are asking 
us to do.
    I do not. I have 600, and I do not have the authority to 
patrol the streets. And they have not done that in the past. 
The concept that they were out patrolling the streets, 
protecting the carriers is not really what was true. It was not 
authorized to do. We do not have the legal authority to do 
that.
    We did have randomness throughout the country in just about 
everything that we did before this management team took over, 
but that is not what their role is. They are not allowed to do 
that.
    Mr. Raskin. So, OK, you are saying you do not have the 
statutory authority to----
    Mr. DeJoy. That's correct.
    Mr. Raskin [continuing]. Deploy them to protect the mail 
routes and letter carriers. I was not aware of that. Because I 
thought they were doing that before.
    Mr. DeJoy. No, no. No, and I also only have 600. And I--the 
places where they are is where the mail and our people are, 
right? And this is--you know, this is where they need to be.
    Mr. Raskin. So even if you know that there are certain 
letter carriers being targeted in particular places out on the 
road, particular routes that are being subject to organized 
criminal attacks----
    Mr. DeJoy. So, I can assure you, if we know somebody is 
being targeted, the United States Postal Inspection Service is 
all over it, and they will also--we have relationships with 
local task force that help us throughout the--you know, 
throughout the country and so forth.
    We are--you know, it is a big country, and we are a small 
group. I only have about 600 of those guys, too. But we have 
established local relationships. We have a good relationships 
with Federal law enforcement in these areas and also local law 
enforcement.
    Mr. Raskin. OK. Well, good. Well, I hope we can work 
together to use existing resources that you have to the fullest 
extent to keep the mail and the letter carriers safe.
    And thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. I yield 
back.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    I would now recognize the policy Chairman, the gentleman 
from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, for five minutes.
    Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you, Mr. DeJoy, for being here.
    The Postal Service has continued to lose money, and you 
originally claimed that the Postal Service would break even in 
2023, but that obviously has not happened. Do you have a new 
estimate for when the Postal Service might be able to break 
even?
    Mr. DeJoy. We are trying to reconcile that right now. The 
reason--there's three reasons, three basic reasons we did not 
make our targets.
    No. 1, CSRS administrative action was in our plan. That was 
$3 billion in our current P&L this year. No. 2, inflation was 
way above what we predicted inflation to be in that plan, and 
we--although we have been raising prices, it is always in 
arrears, our inflation, and that is to the tune of $2 billion.
    And then we have tried to, in the middle of the process of 
doing this, we needed to focus first on getting, you know, 
keeping service up and getting into a position where we could 
start making tactical moves like moving significant--we have 
moved significant amount of volume off of air to ground. It's 
going to drive about $1 billion out of our run rate.
    So, these are the things--and the place was just a little 
more broke than we were coming six months into this and do it. 
But you know, we need to move, and we can get back on track 
with this. I see where targets of money are for us to get just 
by improving our operational performance and growing our 
business. But we are behind. We are not happy with it, but 
there were significant events that we needed to deal with.
    Mr. Palmer. You made some significant changes. Actually, 
you answered my next question about the impact of inflation, 
and I guess I also wonder about how things have impacted your 
work force participation, having enough people to do the jobs 
that need to be done. Have you had any difficulty in getting 
people to work?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, I would say it is different in different 
functions and areas. Within our plant processing operations, 
first of all, I have converted--we have converted 125,000 
people from pre-career to full-time positions within the United 
States Postal Service. And that dramatically reduces our 
turnover rate, and it endears the individual to the 
organization for long-term career employment.
    So, from that standpoint, for the most part, our employee 
availability today is pretty high. Other than in certain areas 
that the two-percent that we are having a problem on delivery. 
Delivery, carriers is our toughest area right now.
    Mr. Palmer. You made some pretty significant changes to the 
Delivering for America plan, and just very briefly, do the 
changes take into account the probability of a lower volume of 
regular mail and packages, the potential for a downturn, 
possibly even a recession in the economy? Have you taken that 
into account, particularly for the short term?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, we do forecast for that. What I would tell 
you, sir, is we are in the process of repairing a 15-year atom 
bomb that fell on the place. So, a quarter or two in terms of 
our long-term strategy is not going to change the 
infrastructure rehabilitation that we need to do, and we have 
confidence that in the long run, the country will get through 
its economic problems, and we will be back to business.
    And we need to--the United States Postal Service needs to, 
and it is in the PSRA, we need to deliver mail and packages 
together in an integrated manner.
    Mr. Palmer. I want to quickly transition to something else, 
and that has to do with the pensions for your employees. And 
the Post Office is required, they are limited in what they can 
invest in to just Federal Treasury bonds, and you have got $298 
billion in assets in the employee pensions.
    If you had had the opportunity to have the same investment 
strategy as the Federal Employees Retirement Plan, Civil 
Service Retirement Plan, some of the projections I have seen, 
it could be $1.2 trillion. And I just--I wonder what the 
barriers are that keeps the Postal Service from adopting a 
different model, even the model of the Federal employees, and 
is this something that we ought to be looking into in this 
Committee?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, this is one of the big, big initiatives that 
our chairman, Roman Martinez, asked our OIG to take a look at, 
and it is about--instead of being at a deficit, we'd be at $700 
billion. It changes the whole dynamic of what the organization 
needs to do. It would be a legislative requirement, just like 
CSRS was an administrative requirement, the same thing. When we 
take postal funds, because all our money is raised by selling 
postal products. And then we have to--we put it into the 
Federal, you know, Treasury--Federal Treasuries to manage for 
our retirement.
    We have the same thing with CSRS. When the Postal Service 
was established in 1970, we think like we did not do a very 
accurate job of accounting for what liabilities should have 
stayed with the Federal Government and what liabilities they 
gave to us for our long-term retirement plans. And both of 
those things would significantly change the demands on our 
cash-flow, which we know--my personal opinion is mail is no 
longer a monopoly. The delivery of mail is no longer a 
monopoly, right? It is an obligation.
    We have $40 billion of mail, probably cost us $65 billion 
to deliver to 163 million addresses. So, we have to get our 
fair share of the package business, and that's what we're 
trying to do in aligning these things. And these are financial 
burdens that we have that we believe we shouldn't.
    So, anything that this Congress can do to address both CSRS 
reform and any portion, any portion of our retirement 
investment to have a little more commercial appeal to it would 
be extremely helpful to the organization's long-term 
sustainability.
    Mr. Palmer. I thank the witness, and I thank the chairman.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you 
very much.
    The gentlewoman from Vermont, Congresswoman Balint, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Sessions. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Balint. Before my line of questioning, I request 
unanimous consent to insert into the record an article from 
Government Executive that appears to run counter to earlier 
testimony.
    Mr. Sessions. Without objection, that will be entered into 
the record.
    Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    According to this article, Mr. DeJoy, the union said it had 
regularly conducted carrier protection and community policing 
patrols to ensure the safety of letter carriers and other 
Postal Service personnel, which seems to run counter to what 
you said earlier. Do you wish to clarify?
    Mr. DeJoy. I stand by my statement. You can pick who you 
want to believe.
    Ms. Balint. That is all you got?
    Mr. DeJoy. That is all I got.
    Ms. Balint. OK.
    Mr. DeJoy. What do you want me to say? We have people that 
say a lot of things about the Postal Service.
    Ms. Balint. Mr. DeJoy, thank you for being here. I 
appreciate it. I am from a rural state, from Vermont, and I 
know that the Postal Service is an absolutely essential service 
not just to Vermont, but to rural America, and protecting the 
Postal Service is one of my top priorities in Congress.
    Now, according to Pew Research, 91 percent of Americans 
have a favorable view of the Postal Service, which clearly 
makes it the most popular Federal agency, which is saying a 
lot. And Vermonters, like my community members, know that their 
postal workers are working incredibly hard in difficult 
circumstances to ensure that letters and packages get delivered 
on time.
    And I have talked to many Vermont postal workers and 
community members. We know that the postal workers are going 
above and beyond to make sure that our rural communities are 
getting their letters and packages, and I am very grateful for 
their hard work. But despite these efforts, Vermonters are 
still struggling with service delays in mail and packages, and 
I want us to continue to work together to make sure that we 
support postal workers and ensure that Vermonters get their 
mail on time.
    Now my concern is that, Mr. DeJoy, the Delivering for 
America plan calls for removing back-end operations like letter 
sorting from most post offices and relocating these operations 
to massive new sorting and delivery centers. And many 
Vermonters that I hear from on a regular basis, they fear that 
the opening of these sorting and delivery centers is a first 
step toward closing their local post office. So, I am wondering 
if you can assure the public that your plan will not result in 
reductions to retail operations or hours of service.
    Mr. DeJoy. Thank you. Our plan for the sorting and delivery 
centers is, in fact, something that is going to save service 
throughout the Nation. We have a 50-year-old mail delivery 
operation that is geared for twice the mail--a tenth of the 
cubic volume with our package deliveries.
    Now we need to run mail and packages together, and we also 
have a terrible transportation system that feeds----
    Ms. Balint. Mr. DeJoy, I am sorry to interrupt. So, I just 
want to get to the heart of the question, which is will your 
plan result in reductions to retail operations or hours of 
service? That is really the question. That is what Vermonters 
care about.
    Mr. DeJoy. So, the rolling out this network will not result 
in reduction of retail operations.
    Ms. Balint. I appreciate that. Thank you.
    The reason why I am so fiercely protective of the Postal 
Service is because it is not just Vermont. It is rural America 
that absolutely depends on postal operations. Without continued 
attention to our rural areas, I really feel that our 
communities are going to continue to suffer, and this is not 
good for the democracy. It is not good for our economy. It is 
not good for rural America.
    So, I want to make sure, will you commit to maintaining the 
size and work hours of the postal work force?
    Mr. DeJoy. I do not--I could not possibly commit to 
something so broad as that. I would not even know how to 
understand what you are asking me to commit to. We----
    Ms. Balint. Let me rephrase, Mr. DeJoy. Do you understand 
that rural America is in a different situation with needing 
postal service?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, I understand--so now the question is in 
context with rural America?
    Ms. Balint. That is exactly my question, which we are 
making sure that people----
    Mr. DeJoy. OK. We--we are, in fact, trying to change rules 
with our union. So, we are adding people into rural communities 
because we're well aware that we have problems in staffing in 
those particular areas. And there is a number of things we are 
doing with old legacy processes that we have and looking to 
incentivize people to make deliveries.
    And in fact, the S&DC network will enhance that. There are 
better working conditions. It has further reach. So, there are 
a lot of good things to that. But the organization is just 
genetically committed, and it is not just--it is all the way 
through management and myself, committed to servicing every 
address that we are supposed to service.
    And we have gone through a tough time financially and a 
tough time in the Nation with the pandemic. And we are 
recovering, and we are recovering with a great deal of energy 
and precision. And we know--we have special measures now on 
rural areas that are hotspots that deal with just the sound of 
trouble so we could begin to start working on it.
    So, we are very committed. I'm very committed. And rest 
assured--I mean, we are going to do the best job we can under 
the current circumstances to continue to serve in these areas.
    Ms. Balint. I appreciate that. I just--I want to just make 
it really clear that rural America is in a very different 
situation than many other parts of this country, and we need a 
vibrant Postal Service regardless of how many individuals are 
in that area.
    So, thank you very much. I appreciate you being here today.
    Mr. DeJoy. Thank you, ma'am.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    The gentleman from South Carolina, the gentleman Mr. 
Timmons is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield my time to 
Mr. Duncan of South Carolina.
    Mr. Duncan. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I am 
not on this Committee. I am not even on the Subcommittee or the 
full Committee. This issue is so important to me to have an 
opportunity to talk with you that I wanted to waive on.
    I started this process in 2017, when I was contacted by 
folks in my hometown of Laurens, South Carolina, about our post 
office there. The Postal Service removed the drive-up boxes 
completely. They put a mailbox out front where elderly folks 
have to call in to the post office for folks to come out and 
retrieve their mail or deliver their mail. I do not know how 
that is feasible from a personnel standpoint, but the drive-up 
boxes have been there for a long time.
    The second issue is the location of the post office is on a 
United States highway, U.S. 221. It is at the top of a hill. 
So, when there is a lot of traffic at that post office, there 
are a limited number of parking spaces right in front, and they 
are all full. People are sitting in a U.S. highway, trying to 
turn in at the top of a hill. It creates a tremendous safety 
issue. I have got a record of the incidents that have happened 
there. So, it is an unsafe location.
    So, we have asked for consideration of relocating that post 
office, and in 2018, April 2018--and you acknowledged receipt 
of that on April 30--a letter was sent to U.S. Postal Service 
from myself, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, U.S. Senator Tim 
Scott, the local mayor, the city council chairman, and a number 
of other constituents, asking for just a meeting to look at 
that post office, just to come up--some personnel that worked 
for you, just to come up to Laurens to look at that post office 
situation and address some of the issues. Maybe the drive-up 
boxes, maybe the post office itself.
    You came and spoke to the Republican caucus a couple of 
years ago down in the Visitors Center. I met with your Chief of 
Staff. I handed him a detailed note, whispered in his ear, told 
him the issue, and asked for a meeting with U.S. Postal Service 
personnel in Laurens to address this issue.
    I am here today because I have not heard from you guys at 
all. You refused to meet with me. You refused to have personnel 
from Atlanta or Columbia come to meet with me. I named two post 
offices this year. I met with the legislative liaison, people 
that came up for the post office namings in my district and 
asked them. We have heard nothing.
    So, I am here asking you for a commitment to have personnel 
from the U.S. Postal Service come and meet with me about an 
issue that is so important that a United States Senator got 
involved.
    Mr. DeJoy. I think I remember the incident, and from my 
understanding is you have been given an answer since 2018.
    Mr. Duncan. That answer is we are not willing to meet with 
you.
    Mr. DeJoy. No, the answer was an explanation of what the 
situation was and what the changes that you were requesting and 
that we could not help you.
    Mr. Duncan. No, sir. The answer was if a customer of the 
U.S. Postal Service has a complaint, we do not meet with 
Federal officials. I represent 770,000 Americans who expect 
their mail--you all have a great job, and you do a tremendous 
job. But I represent a large constituency that expects me to be 
their representative with an agency of the Federal Government 
and at least have a conversation. And you are not even willing 
to come up and visit and take a look, eyeballs on the 
situation.
    Mr. DeJoy. I will visit with you any time. I do not know if 
I'm going to go to where you are.
    Mr. Duncan. You do not have to, but send somebody. Nobody 
has come to us.
    Mr. DeJoy. Sir, I believe we have sent people.
    Mr. Duncan. No, sir, you have not.
    Mr. DeJoy. I believe we have sent people.
    Mr. Duncan. You have not.
    Mr. DeJoy. OK.
    Mr. Duncan. Because I would have been there.
    Mr. DeJoy. I will take another look. I will take a look at 
it. I'm thinking I'm recalling this situation, the specific 
request properly, but I will take a look at it, and I'll call 
you myself and tell you whether----
    Mr. Duncan. Will you commit to have somebody come to 
Laurens and take a look at it on the ground with me, and we can 
actually walk through the situation there, talk to law 
enforcement about the issues?
    Mr. DeJoy. OK. But that's fine. But I believe--from 2018, 
there have been a lot of people involved in making decisions 
about access and postal access before me, right? And I have--
I'm trying to transform the organization. I'm assuming--I 
cannot believe that they have not--they made improper 
decisions----
    Mr. Duncan. I will provide you the documentation where they 
have not, if you would like to see that.
    Mr. DeJoy. OK.
    Mr. Duncan. Second issue----
    Mr. DeJoy. OK.
    Mr. Duncan. I have got a commitment you are going to send 
somebody. We are going to take a look at it, hopefully with me 
present. We can look at that issue.
    Second issue in my district is Savannah Lakes Village. It 
is a development. I know you all have a lot of developments. 
They are building out. U.S. Postal Service actually delivers 
mail to houses within that development. But new houses that 
have been built since whatever the date is where a new policy 
went into play, the postal delivery service drives by houses to 
deliver to the house next door, but they won't deliver to the 
new one.
    And this development, all the land was sold prior to the 
rule that you guys had about new houses in the development like 
that. This should be grandfathered in. There is an issue with 
trying to build a cluster box, but the Postal Service won't 
even meet with this group. This is not just a town hall. Just 
meet with stakeholders and see if we can reach a solution to 
this.
    But I cannot believe that a postal delivery person would 
drive by a house, deliver mail to the next door, maybe the 
second house down, but will skip a house that was recently 
built in a development where the land was all sold prior to the 
rulemaking of the U.S. Postal Service. Can I get a commitment 
that you guys will meet with the folks in Savannah Lakes 
Village? It does not have to be the local postal operators, but 
nobody will come and have a meeting with stakeholders there.
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes. So, there's a lot of things you would not 
believe, right? And there's a lot of requirements on us that I 
cannot believe, right, that we are trying to straighten out and 
balance what our service is, what the rules, what the legacy 
rules are in terms of what we do, and what every individual 
American wants in terms of service. And it is almost an--you 
need a magical power to do it, right?
    So, why he passes that collection box and so forth, there 
is probably a rule that says that is what we do.
    Mr. Duncan. And that is ludicrous. Your guys behind you are 
shaking their head and----
    Mr. DeJoy. Probably. I agree. There is a lot of ludicrous 
things. I could give you a list 1,000 miles long.
    Mr. Duncan. I get that, that there are other developments. 
This is not a unique situation. But something needs to change 
because Americans expect to have their mail delivered.
    I am way over time, Mr. Chairman. But thank you for 
committing to actually look at some of this with me.
    Mr. DeJoy. I will. And I just want to remind you that when 
we--when we got here, we had $153 billion negative balance 
sheet and were losing $10 billion, $11 billion, $12 billion a 
year.
    Mr. Duncan. But that postal delivery person is still going 
into the neighborhood, driving right by a house. How can they 
not stop? I get it.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina.
    And Mr. General DeJoy, I was aware of the gentleman this 
morning. Perhaps this is new or not new, necessarily to you, 
but I have committed to the gentleman that I will engage your 
appropriate government relations people and that we will sit 
down next week.
    I think it is important that under whether it is Mr. Mfume 
or myself, that this Subcommittee personally takes the 
responsibility to effectively meet with the gentleman from 
South Carolina and your staff, and so I would ask that you not 
have to call yourself, but that rather your government affairs 
people would be in touch with us. We will set up that meeting.
    I think part of what you are trying to do is to run a large 
operation, and what the gentleman from South Carolina is trying 
to do is to make sure that he effectively deals with you and 
you with him. So, I would just let you know on the public 
record, whether it is Mr. Mfume or whether it is myself, we 
will engage in a positive way to make progress.
    And I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for his time.
    The gentleman yields back his time. Mr. Timmons yields back 
his time.
    The gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton, 
is now recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. DeJoy, first, I want to note one of my own top Postal 
Service priorities, helping to prevent mail theft and attacks 
on Postal Service employees. I have introduced the Postal 
Service Security Camera Act, which would require that, subject 
to appropriations, the public service install security cameras 
at each postal facility to protect Postal Service employees, 
customers, and property.
    So, Mr. DeJoy, would cameras help with the ongoing and 
highly publicized thefts of mail?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, the thefts of mail are not actually 
happening in our plants and facilities, where cameras would be 
mostly used. If they were put on the streets over these areas 
of crime, certainly it would help in terms of investigation. I 
do not know how much--they do serve as deterrents to crime, 
sometimes.
    So, but I think within our facilities, our plants, we have 
good visibility of what is going on there. It does not prevent 
events from happening. It just identifies what happened 
afterwards. But certainly, cameras on the streets and so forth, 
which many cities and locales are doing, is--does make 
criminals think twice, if they are actually thinking that day.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. DeJoy.
    I would like to turn to the Postal Service Reform Act now. 
It allows the Postal Service to enter into agreements with 
state, local, and tribal governments to provide noncommercial 
services that provide enhanced value, do not detract from core 
postal services, and provide a reasonable contribution to 
public service institutional costs.
    This provision is intended to give the Postal Service 
opportunities to increase revenue and better serve communities 
as a one-stop shop for certain registration and services. The 
provision also authorized the Postal Service to experiment with 
different products. Consistent with existing postal law, the 
Postal Service currently performs non-postal services for the 
Federal Government.
    Since enactment of the Postal Service Reform Act, the 
Postal Service has not used this authority. So, Mr. DeJoy, do 
you think new authority is an opportunity to provide expanded 
services to the public, while at the same time bringing in 
needed revenue?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, Congresswoman, I do. There is a step to our 
rehabilitation process in terms of fixing our number-one 
revenue generator, which is delivery of mail and delivery of 
packages and selling more aggressively into the package market. 
Concurrent with that, we will be starting to look at what do we 
do with our retail? How do we make our retail environment more 
vibrant?
    We sell now--I mean, I love our Priority Mail bags and 
Hallmark cards, but that's not going to drive where we need to 
be to maintain this massive network, and we have a lot of 
ideas. But with those ideas, needs to come--I need to have 
those ideas identified, resourced, have a project plan, and so 
on and so forth. And that is on the table.
    We are relooking at our whole salesforce right now in terms 
of how I align people, the organization to pursue projects so 
they do not have haphazard starts and go into the wrong time. 
So, I appreciate the wisdom of the Congress to put that in. I 
understand what its intention was. But this is a journey for 
us. That is a new initiative, and I can assure you that we will 
have resources dedicated trying to figure out just how we 
capitalize on the opportunity.
    Ms. Norton. So, what kinds of non-postal services might the 
Postal Service pilot or explore?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, I think one of the things that has been--the 
way I look at it, we have an infrastructure, and it is 
everywhere, right? And it has a front door, and it has arms and 
legs attached to it that could take something anywhere and so 
forth. It could be used to meet. It could be used to stock 
products. It could be used like we did in the kit program, the 
COVID test kit program that we worked--where we delivered 700 
million COVID test kits. That was using our particular network.
    Once you have a--you know, the ability to have 
infrastructure in these areas, what are, in fact, the services 
that one could provide? We know we already have digital 
identity. We know we already have--you know, we do passports. 
But there's a lot of different types of services that the 
communities can use that we would be interested in looking at 
within the framework of what our regulatory responsibility is.
    And with the--with the vision that business breeds 
business, activity brings activity, and so forth. It is just--
it is something we are in our infant stages of looking at. How 
do we repurpose our whole retail network so it re-establishes 
as vibrant? So, we are looking at shared workplaces with small 
businesses. We are looking at lockboxes. We are looking at 
stocking crucial infrastructure, critical parts, and product 
deliveries for hospitals and service centers and so forth.
    There is a lot that we can do, and just looking at some of 
the service that are needed in the commercial marketplace, but 
are less available in some of these other locations. I think 
that is a good role for us to play with our physical 
distribution capabilities and our retail stature and presence 
everywhere. And we are going to--we are going to chase after 
this stuff.
    Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Fry, is recognized 
for five minutes.
    Mr. Fry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing 
today.
    And much like the gentleman from South Carolina earlier, my 
focus today will be very localized. Mr. Postmaster General, I 
want to say thank you for the work that you are doing. I really 
appreciate you being here today.
    We have been in communication recently. There is a post 
office that was burned down in Longs, South Carolina, in 2021 
in June, and at that time, the Post Office or the USPS 
committed to completing a finished replacement of that post 
office by early this year. If you look at the site as it stands 
now, nothing is there.
    There are mail trucks that facilitate as much as they can, 
but there is nothing there. There is no building. There is not 
even a breaking of ground at that site. And we had reached out 
very early with some frustration, quite frankly, that we were 
not getting--look, one of the roles that we have, and when I 
was in the state legislature, if I called an agency, somebody 
would get back to me within 24 or 48 hours. Our role is to 
facilitate accurate information to the people that we 
represent.
    And, quite frankly, for a little bit there, we were not 
getting anywhere with your staff about what was going on, what 
was causing these delays? Why has ground not been broken? Why 
make a commitment in 2021 to a completed post office in early 
this year, and we have not even started?
    And so we are trying to facilitate that information. So, I 
do appreciate last week your office responding to a letter that 
we had written, informing us that a lease was recently executed 
for the construction of a new post office. Do you know of any 
instances other than Longs, South Carolina, where offices have 
been destroyed or damaged and not rebuilt in a timely manner?
    Mr. DeJoy. Sir, I could not list specifics, but there are a 
lot of instances that existed at--around the organization that 
were conditions that resulted from events, from neglect, from 
time, and so forth, and there is a long, long list of things we 
need to fix. And so, I'm not going to articulate them all here, 
but I can give you--I have $7 billion of deferred maintenance, 
$7 billion of deferred maintenance.
    So, you know, and we also did not have money in 2020. So, 
but I'm glad we have it under lease, and I'll take a look at 
that when I get back to the office, and we will see if we could 
move it along, right?
    Mr. Fry. No, I appreciate that. And I think we will go over 
some other stuff here with my remaining time, but to me, 
facilitating accurate information and being a help to 
constituents is my top priority. And I know that I share that 
with other people, particularly as Ms. Balint said from 
Vermont, particularly within rural communities.
    Right now, there are some complaints about them not getting 
the service that they need. And so, how we can fix that, how we 
can partner together is absolutely crucial because we want to 
be that resource for our constituents. We want to make the post 
office look good, but that communication requires two people, 
right? And if it is just coming from our offices and not with 
you, that is a big problem.
    Recently, the mayor of Marion, South Carolina, contacted my 
office. And this is completely different, changing lanes here. 
And here is an excerpt of the letter that he sent: ``With USPS 
permission, the city of Marion would go in and dig up all the 
old plants in front of the property at our expense. We have an 
excellent garden club in Marion. The ladies in the group have 
advised me that they would be happy to replant the area.''
    Look, I think the underlying issue here is that they want 
to make their town look beautiful, right? And so, they are not 
getting--I guess there is an existing policy that would 
prohibit clubs or organizations from beautifying the USPS 
property. Is that in existence and why?
    Mr. DeJoy. Sir, we had 900 policy manuals that have not 
been updated in 30 years, in the process of going--going 
through them right now. What I would say is, I'm aware of the 
communication problems that we have had from the field back up 
to headquarters. I have reorganized to eliminate that, to have 
direct communication from our headquarters right down in 
authority and responsibility, and we're working on making those 
changes.
    We're also working on improving our voice with all our 
constituents and stakeholders. That is something that is--I see 
it--I'm the number-one critic of our organization. You just go 
over to headquarters and ask them. But we are making great 
changes in that, but it is going to take time to make itself, 
you know, through the whole--you know, the whole country.
    And it is unfortunate the way, as you move into areas that 
are less concentrated, we seem to--it seems to be the last one 
impacted on these things.
    Mr. Fry. Thank you for your time. And Mr. Chairman, just 
briefly, in conclusion, I would welcome the opportunity--there 
are several other local issues that I have, that have been 
expressed to me. I would welcome the opportunity to work with 
your staff to at least get good information on a policy that 
exists, a problem with performance maybe, whatever the case is, 
but our role is to advocate and help further those discussions 
and to get our constituents accurate information as to why.
    And so, if we can continue that dialog, as evidenced by 
your recent letter to me, I would really appreciate that.
    Mr. DeJoy. Sure. And my government relations person, Peter 
Pastre, is here and would be happy to reach out to you.
    Mr. Fry. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. DeJoy. OK.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    I would like to note on both sides of this aisle, we have 
taken the time to effectively, professionally provide our 
feedback, and I want to say thank you to the Members for 
maintaining that high level of professionalism, along with the 
Postmaster General in his response. And I thank them and 
recognize that.
    Now the gentleman yields back his time.
    Then now we would go to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. 
Casar.
    Mr. Casar. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Postmaster General, 
for being here.
    I am a brand-new Member of Congress, and here in the first 
few months, I expected to get lots of emails and notes about 
healthcare trying to navigate--or about veterans trying to 
navigate the healthcare system, expected to get lots of notes 
of folks trying to navigate the immigration system. But what I 
have been surprised by has been the number of letter carriers 
and postal workers reaching out directly to my office about 
concerns in their workplace.
    I had asked my staff coming up to this hearing to start 
giving me a summary, and the list was longer than what I could 
put in five minutes. So, I asked just for five examples of 
constituents who are Federal employees, who are USPS employees 
about their issues.
    One of them, a worker having an allergic reaction, 
potentially with life-threatening consequences, being pushed to 
go out and deliver the mail in the midst of that allergic 
reaction.
    Second, people reaching out being injured on the job and 
not--and their supervisor approving continuation of their pay. 
But then, as that request went further up the food chain, that 
request being denied.
    Third, a postal worker in San Antonio sending us photos of 
him holding a thermometer in his vehicle, and the thermometer 
showing 136 degrees.
    Fourth, a constituent reaching out, saying that they had 
been injured on the job as a postal worker, an injury that 
required surgery, and them reaching out to us trying to get 
help because they were not able to get help at their workplace 
getting that surgery covered.
    Fifth, workers having their real concerns about ADA spots 
being removed at their workplace, and they being workers that 
rely on those parking spaces with disabilities.
    And the list goes on and on and on. And obviously, those 
are really concerning issues to me because not only is it the 
right thing for us to do to provide a great workplace for all 
Federal employees, but we know it affects the mail.
    And so, could you comment, Postmaster General, on what it 
is you are hearing? Are these issues that are really just 
affecting my office, or do you see these things as more 
systemic and something that your office is trying to take on?
    Mr. DeJoy. So the consequence of 15 years of bad 
legislation, dramatic change in the economy, a Great Recession, 
the reduction of mail, and no money in the organization put 
stresses throughout the whole organization, which deteriorated 
just about every relationship, piece of equipment, individual, 
and it all winds up, the biggest impact comes down to the 
people that are working in the plants and delivering the mail, 
right? We are all stressed. That is the way it is, and that is 
the organization I came into.
    I can tell you that we have made tremendous gains in trying 
to work through that, and that is what the Delivering for 
America plan is, in fact, doing. It is improving our 
operations, improving our dialog.
    I've spoken myself to 8,000 supervisors about if you--when 
you are thinking, when you are talking to your people, right, 
treat them like you want to be treated. When you are giving 
them direction, OK, when you are disciplining them, when you 
are having a bad day, these are conversations I had with our 
supervisors. Because there was a tension throughout the 
organization that had--was allowed to develop because of the 
conditions.
    Mr. Casar. And I appreciate that you all are taking it on. 
And again, I want to----
    Mr. DeJoy. So, so to get to the--you know, four of the five 
things I do not think are systemic. I believe they could 
happen. We are continuing to work on training on these types of 
interactions. There is confusion in a lot of the work rules. 
But I think systemically, we are improving, and most people 
come to work each day, do their jobs, have good interactions 
with their management, and they go home.
    But we do have these types of issues. The one situation, 
the situation with the vehicle, yes, we know that is an issue. 
That is why I've been trying to buy vehicles for two years now.
    Mr. Casar. Good. And in Texas, where somebody could show a 
136-degree thermometer----
    Mr. DeJoy. We are on our way.
    Mr. Casar [continuing]. I hope that we will be able to say 
that that is not OK.
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, it is--it is----
    Mr. Casar. Mr. DeJoy, just because I am running out of 
time. I appreciate and I want to make sure that our next 
conversation, we could actually lay out what it is that we are 
getting done so that we can be responsive to people.
    Some numbers shown to me by my team were that for noncareer 
employees, we used to have a turnover rate of 40 percent. That 
is climbing higher up. I hope that we are able to address that.
    Again, I do not know if the number--I would be interested 
in you verifying the number. Folks in my San Antonio office 
relaying to me that two out of every three new employees are 
turning over before the end of the year in the San Antonio 
office. Again, if those are not right, would want to hear that. 
But if they are, would want to know that we are trying to 
intervene to make sure that we are retaining employees, moving 
them over to those career positions, as you noted today, and 
making things better.
    Mr. DeJoy. That--that is a statistic that is not 
representative of what this management team has done, OK? When 
we came--I've converted--we have converted 125,000 pre-career 
people to full time. First of all, they were called noncareer 
when I got them. We changed the name, called them pre-career, 
and converted them.
    Now we are coming off of the pandemic--these numbers, the 
way they are calculated, many people get these out of the OIG 
report. I have 650,000 employees. They sampled 100 people, 
sampled 100 people. This is the type of statistics I need to 
deal with.
    Mr. Casar. Understood. And would love to dig in with you. 
For example, in that San Antonio office, if we are having two-
thirds of new employees turn over before the end of the year, 
then we could probably agree let us try to do something about 
it now.
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Casar. Thank you. Appreciate you.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    The distinguished gentleman, Mr. Edwards, from North 
Carolina, is recognized.
    Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. DeJoy, thanks for being with us this afternoon, and 
thanks for your service to our country.
    I cannot think of many positions one might hold in our 
Federal Government that would be less enviable than yours. I 
can tell you that while the Postal Service is not a perfect 
system, I know many of the hard-working men and women back at 
home that serve the Postal Service, and I know them to be 
professional, dedicated, hard-working people that operate in 
obviously an imperfect system.
    I would like to turn our attention to elections for just a 
moment. With the heightened emphasis on absentee ballots or 
mail-in ballots, whatever a state wants to call those, 
particularly through the pandemic, and many of the aspects of 
our election system being called into question, the Postal 
Service has been called into question. And I know in serving in 
the North Carolina legislature, that we have attempted on a 
number of occasions to pass legislation that says there has to 
be a time that there is a cutoff to receive absentee ballots.
    North Carolina, just a couple of years ago, extended that 
to nine days, which in many folks' eyes creates question. And 
so, our effort has been to eliminate the question about when 
the cutoff should be and pass legislation that says that an 
absentee ballot should be received by a board of elections by 
the close of business on an Election Day.
    But unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there that 
say that the Post Office is so incompetent that they would be 
disenfranchising voters if we had a cutoff time. What could I 
take back to those folks to give them confidence in our system 
that the Postal Service is, in fact, capable of allowing states 
legislators to create a specific deadline?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, I want to be careful here. I'm not opining 
on any rules or anything, but I'm going to tell you about the 
United States Postal Service and their performance in 
elections. And we have had very, very good performance in 
elections, and the people--and this, this was before I got 
here.
    The organization was committed to delivering--and the 
people see a ballot on the floor in a plant, they dive on it to 
get it delivered. What we have done, as we improve our 
processes, which we have, where significantly the overall mail 
system, the flow through of ballots is, in fact, better. We 
have set up a separate organization to monitor this all year 
long and interact with different agencies.
    And we have been the most consistent thing in the election 
process for the last 10 years. States and election boards 
change all the time, change the rules. So, if we get a mail 
ballot in time, we will deliver it in time, 99-point-whatever 
percent of the time.
    And I would suggest, like we have said when we give counsel 
on this, mail it a week in advance. Let us not wait until the 
last minute. You are going to send your mother a Mother's Day 
card, and you want her to get it on Mother's Day, you do not 
send it the day before.
    So, from that standpoint, that's what we looked at. We have 
worked with the previous Chair and the Committee on a standard 
mail piece for elections with barcodes. That would be something 
that is--how do you want to--I cannot pay for it. The Postal 
Service cannot pay for it. So, how do you implement something 
like that?
    But I think from the standpoint, as you have seen, 
historically, that we are pretty reliable in getting it done, 
and we will get more reliable because our whole system is going 
to get more reliable as we roll out the rest of the processes 
in the DFA plan.
    Mr. Edwards. Thank you for that. Can you tell us, are there 
any specific procedures that are changed during an election to 
handle absentee ballots?
    Mr. DeJoy. That are changed just for an election?
    Mr. Edwards. Right.
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes, it is--so we have a number of different 
agreements with different courts and so forth that we have 
decided. But it really comes down to that we put more emphasis 
on hunting for the ballot if we get our hands on it. It is 
called ``extraordinary measures,'' and we do keep post offices 
open later. We do more trips. We do whatever that we--we do 
more of everything. It is just a matter of moving mail and 
packages.
    We coordinate with some offices where to bring stuff. We do 
some turnaround in the post office that we normally would not 
do. I mean, one of the big misunderstandings all the time is 
the postmark. We do not postmark everything, and a lot of 
places think that we do, and that is--so we try and postmark a 
little more and so forth.
    So, there is a heightened awareness. Our board, we have a 
committee, a board committee that kicks in, looks, chaired by 
Governor McReynolds. We have part of our organization that I 
set up when I came in that is standing all year round, not just 
for elections, to coordinate specific issues. So, we have it in 
advance. And we do go the extra mile to make sure during the 
elections that every ballot we could possibly deliver on, 
rescue, we do.
    Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. DeJoy, and thank you for your 
service.
    Mr. Chair, I yield.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    The distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms. 
Stansbury, is recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Stansbury. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and 
Ranking Member.
    And thank you, Mr. DeJoy, for being here with us today.
    I want to start out by thanking all of our USPS staff. I 
see some of your staff sitting behind you, but of course, all 
of our postal workers and letter carriers not only in my 
district, but across the country, who day in, day out deliver 
the mail across all of our communities and are really the 
backbone of our communities.
    I represent New Mexico's First congressional District, 
which includes the Albuquerque metro area and over a half dozen 
rural communities, and issues around rural postal service are 
really crucial for the communities that I represent. In 
particular, as we have been heading into this hearing, we have 
been hearing from a lot of our letter carriers about issues 
around new policies the Postal Service is implementing around 
rural compensation. And so, I want to focus my attention 
especially on these issues.
    The first question I want to ask you, Mr. DeJoy, is how 
much consultation the Postal Service did with rank-and-file 
rural letter carriers before deciding to implement this policy?
    Mr. DeJoy. The recent policy on rural carrier pay 
adjustment?
    Ms. Stansbury. Yes.
    Mr. DeJoy. About 10 years' worth.
    Ms. Stansbury. Can you please characterize that? Because 
what we heard from folks who work in our district is that they 
did not find out about it until it was actually being 
implemented.
    Mr. DeJoy. So, the--this was a decision that was made in 
2012 through arbitration between the union and the Postal 
Service, and we worked for seven, eight--I think by 2019 we had 
the structure of it decided, how it was going to be rolled out.
    We did a sampling that year of 4,000 routes and came up 
with some adjustments that needed to be made, and then in 
consultation with the union, our H.R. department, we began to 
roll the process out to across the Nation. So, from my--I do 
not know that every single detail as to how this got 
communicated, but it was not--I cannot imagine it was not 
effectively communicated to everybody.
    Now the result of it is, you know, is unfortunate the 
result of it because a lot of it has resulted in the 
aggregation of mail decline over 10 years impacting the rural 
carrier at one shot.
    Ms. Stansbury. And Mr. DeJoy, you know, I think among the 
many concerns, in addition to, in fact, what you just 
highlighted about not knowing how it was communicated down to 
the rank-and-file, is the impact that it is going to have on 
rural carrier pay. Are you aware that 66 percent of our 
carriers are actually going to lose pay in their paychecks 
because of this adjustment?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes, I am. And what I said was, I mean, I'm 
aware of my H.R. department and the union representatives 
working to deliver the message across the ranks of the 
organization. I'm not aware of the specific detail of what they 
were--was said. And yes, that----
    Ms. Stansbury. But finally, Mr. DeJoy--I apologize for 
interrupting, but because there is short time. I think that 
something of this significance that is going to affect 66 
percent of our rural carriers and rural coverage of our mail 
service, certainly the tone gets set at the top, and how that 
gets communicated, it affects the livelihoods of our carriers. 
It affects our communities. It affects local economies.
    So, my question is, in addition to improving communications 
with the staff of the Postal Service, what plans has USPS put 
into place to ensure that this does not affect recruitment and 
retention of carriers as well as actual service delivery in our 
rural areas?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, we have worked with our union leadership, 
and we are, you know, continuing with our recruiting aspects, 
which have been, you know, significantly enhanced. I do not 
believe that--not to minimize anything. I do not believe the 
cut is 60 percent on it, and I believe that all the 
participants were told and know that this has been coming.
    It is an unfortunate consequence. But on the same token, 
you know, we need to align the compensation for the work that 
is being done. And that is, in fact, what----
    Ms. Stansbury. Mr. DeJoy, while I appreciate your business 
approach to the solvency issues of the Postal Service, our 
postal workers are members of our communities. They need a 
living wage. They need safe working conditions. We need to 
ensure the livelihoods of our communities.
    And part of the job, as a Federal agency, is to ensure that 
we are adequately paying and ensuring the safety and safe 
working conditions of our workers. And I do want to note that 
the issues that Mr. Casar brought up are systemic. Because I 
hear about them every day--of our postal workers' unsafe 
working conditions, crime issues, being out alone, long hours, 
not enough postal workers.
    And so, these policy changes that are being implemented at 
the top and not adequately communicated and consulted with the 
rank-and-file letter carriers are a problem in our communities. 
And so, Mr. DeJoy, I appreciate your service, but it is crucial 
that we make sure that our postal workers on the ground have a 
voice, that they are communicated with clearly, and that we are 
supporting our postal workers.
    And with that, I yield back.
    Mr. DeJoy. So, I disagree with the premise, and I can 
assure you that----
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman--excuse me, General. Excuse 
me, General. The gentlewoman has yielded her time back.
    Do you wish for the gentleman to extend your time to 
receive an answer back from the General?
    Ms. Stansbury. Mr. Chairman, that is at your discretion.
    Mr. Sessions. Well, I am willing to give the gentlewoman--I 
think the gentleman does not seek that time. Thank you very 
much.
    Mr. DeJoy, when a Member yields back their time----
    Mr. DeJoy. Got it.
    Mr. Sessions [continuing]. That time ends, and I appreciate 
it.
    I thank the gentlewoman. She yields back the time.
    The distinguished gentleman, the Chairman of the full 
Committee, Chairman Comer, is recognized for five minutes.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And Postmaster General, it is good to see you here today. I 
know we talk often. We have talked often over the past year and 
a half. We have come a long way in really, what I consider, one 
of the most, if not the most, bipartisan accomplishments last 
year in the Congress, certainly in this Committee, and that was 
passing the postal reform bill.
    As I said then, and I will say it again now, I think you 
are the right person for the job. You have taken a lot of 
bullets, and it is a tough job. It is a big bureaucracy. You do 
something that no one in the private sector wants to do, and 
that is deliver the mail six days a week to every single 
address in America.
    I would like to talk about one of the centerpieces of your 
plan has been the network modernization. And with respect to 
your plan, you are the only Postmaster General since I have 
been in Congress that even came up a plan to reform. The last--
your predecessor always talked about a plan but never came up 
with one. I like to remind people about that.
    But one of the centerpieces of your plan is the network 
modernization, and that, as I understand it, involves 
constructing large facilities in urban areas and running your 
network from that to a smaller number of facilities.
    Could you help me understand what the benefit of this will 
be in terms of savings, manpower needs, improved performance, 
et cetera?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes, sir. So, first of all, thank you for your 
leadership and partnership in passing the legislation. It was a 
really wonderful thing to be a part of and long overdue. So, I 
thank you for your leadership.
    Right now, when we look at national distribution, we move 
mail and packages to 420 different locations that have been 
haphazardly put together over the last 15 years. We want to--
and that disaggregates mail. It creates 55,000 trucks a day 
that run across the country at 30 percent full, and plus, we 
were flying a lot of air, doing a lot of air.
    So, we are collapsing this--aggregating this into 60 
locations, converting those other locations, if they were 
contractors, in-sourcing a tremendous amount of work. But at 
the end of the day, we had a $10.6 billion transportation 
budget. I plan to get $3 billion to $4 billion out of that. We 
have a significant amount of adjunct labor, nonproductive labor 
in these accessorial places and a significant amount of 
overtime. I plan to get $3 billion to $4 billion out of that.
    And then there are other types of operations. Our local 
transportation to feed our delivery units has not been 
addressed in 40 years. It is different. We are going to fix 
that, and there is a couple of billion there.
    Chairman Comer. With respect to the facilities that will 
not be used, what are you going to do with those?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, as I said, I have not adequately articulated 
that this is not a consolidation. We have built up a number of 
leased annexes over the last--and contractor sites and took 
little functions that could not fit in an existing plant and 
put them in there, right? Those are the places that we are 
closing out.
    All our postal facilities, I'm investing significantly in, 
bringing them back up to stay, putting the right equipment in 
them, redoing employee amenities. You are going to have--we 
have 226 locations local processing centers that will be fed 
from these 60 processing centers, and then we are going back to 
all these plants that were closed down over the last 10 years 
and reinvigorating them and putting our sorting and delivery 
centers in.
    And we are modernizing the way the distribution needs to be 
today for the cubic volume that we move, right? Today, 60, 65 
percent of the cubic volume we move are packages. It is not 
little letters. Yet we still run the place like we are moving 
letters, and then we rehandle all the packages. So that is what 
we are trying to redo.
    It is pretty, actually, I wish I could say it is ingenious. 
It is not. It is obvious.
    Chairman Comer. Right. And with that, this is my last 
question, and feel free to take all the time you need to answer 
it because I think it is an important question. The Postal 
Reform Act that we passed provided you with an infusion of 
cash, and we changed some of the liability that was strapped on 
the Post Office. This was, in my opinion, the last-ditch effort 
to try to put the Postal Service in a position to where it can 
do what it is supposed to do, and that is be self-sustaining.
    Now with mail volume continuing to decline, how do you see 
this moving forward in the future to where we can get to a 
position of self-sustainability within the Postal Service? 
Because I have been on record many times. I support the Post 
Office. My colleagues on the Republican side, we all have 
concerns with certain aspects of the Postal Service. But as a 
Democratic Member mentioned, it is very important in rural 
America, and no private company wants to deliver mail six days 
a week in rural America.
    So, what is the future with respect to the fact that we are 
going to continue to see declining mail volume? How can we get 
the Postal Service to where it is in a position of 
sustainability to where Congress will not have to infuse any 
more cash in the future?
    Mr. DeJoy. How much time are you going to give me?
    Chairman Comer. However much time the Chairman will allow.
    Mr. DeJoy. So just--and I certainly appreciate your help. I 
just want to be clear. From my standpoint of coming in and 
changing the organization and what cash became available and 
what was being infused into the organization, we did not--the 
PSRA did not give us an infusion of cash, right? We had not 
paid that liability in over 10 years, right?
    It just kind of straightened out the old legislation, and 
in fact, it pushed the--what we were obligated to pay to six or 
seven years from now, right? We will eventually go to a pay-as-
you-go system. So that is what I'm racing. If we get back to a 
pay-as-you-go system, we are going to have a big problem if we 
do not make these changes that we are making, that we are 
trying to make right now.
    As you know--and this was a contentious issue on the bill--
an integrated mail and package network, right? There is two 
things. There is two inefficiencies within the Postal Service. 
The inefficiency of how we run the place, which was all over 
the place. We got to fix that, right, and get at it.
    And there is a lot money there, and there is a lot of 
better working conditions for everybody that works there. I 
mean, who would have put together a process that handles 25 
million packages a day by hand? By hand, right? So, these are 
the things that we are fixing. We will root out those issues. 
There is a lot of money there, as I described.
    But the mission is still inefficient. That is the other 
inefficiency, the mission. Delivering to 163 million addresses, 
whether you have 1 piece of mail or 10 packages and so forth. 
That we have to do, and we commit to do it. But we have to do 
that efficiently, by moving packages and mail together, 
aggregated network, as was in the bill. We will leverage our 
costs, leverage our conveyor system to every address. That will 
produce better margins in the overall performance, and I 
believe we can become the preferred delivery provider in the 
Nation, and garner a good part of the package business, be the 
greenest thing from an environmental standpoint.
    I do not believe the American people want 50 trucks running 
up and down their neighborhood streets, even in rural America. 
And that, if we grow our package business, which we will or we 
are, I think that is--you know, I need to get $2 billion to $3 
billion of package revenue, get these costs out that I 
identified, and I need to do it quick. I need to do it quick, 
and I think we are close. We are close to solving these things.
    Now there are other areas. We have a lot of unfunded 
mandates. We have brought up the retirement thing and so forth. 
This is not a walk in the park. But it is a close, and I will 
be able to tell you what exactly operationally is too costly to 
do, and we might have to come up with something else on that 
part. But we are full steam ahead on trying to get this done.
    And my hope is our regulator, the Congress, gets out of our 
way because this is a crisis, and we need to move. And taking 
surveys from every opinion, as our regulator wants to do, what 
it is that we should do and flooding our airwaves with proven 
methodologies that have not worked in the past is not helpful.
    Chairman Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman, the distinguished Chairman, 
yields back his time.
    The gentleman from Massachusetts, my friend Mr. Lynch, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the Ranking Member.
    Mr. Postmaster General, welcome.
    Mr. DeJoy. Sir.
    Mr. Lynch. I do not think I have seen you since the 
swearing in----
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes. Yes.
    Mr. Lynch [continuing]. The signing ceremony at the White 
House on the postal reform bill, which you were very helpful 
with. You played a key role in getting that, and I had the 
opportunity to work on that for about 10 years. So certainly 
happy to see that in the rearview mirror.
    Mr. DeJoy. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Lynch. I wanted to talk to you about a piece of 
unfinished business. So, I actually had offered an amendment to 
the Jobs and Infrastructure Act to provide money for the Postal 
Service to modernize its fleet. I think you would get like 
237,000 vehicles. I think, besides DOD, you are No. 1. And many 
of those are what they call long-life. I think that is the term 
they use for those vehicles, where they are supposed to have 
like a 20-year shelf life, but I think some of them are already 
over 30.
    Mr. DeJoy. That is right.
    Mr. Lynch. So, we did provide in the Inflation Reduction 
Act, we provided $3 billion in funding, and I know that in 
December, you committed to ensuring that about 75 percent of 
the next-generation delivery vehicles, which is roughly 66,000 
vehicles, would be electric vehicles. And this is big not just 
for the Postal Service, but bringing the charging 
infrastructure into some of our rural communities and suburban 
communities, as well as major cities. I just wanted to see if I 
could get a little update from you on where we are on the fleet 
modernization program?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes, sir. So, thank you. And thank you for 
assistance in both the legislation and also on the vehicle 
funding.
    As you know, in December, we made--we had been--you know, 
we came out with 10 percent because we did not have a strategy 
to change our infrastructure, and our delivery units could not 
take on this. I'd be afraid to plug a coffee pot in some of 
these places, let alone take a--we then moved forward after we 
passed the reform bill, the financial projections looked a 
little better.
    And then the--because the capital and the benefit of it 
from a financial standpoint did not come close in terms of 
implementation where we were. After the $3 billion, I went to 
the--I do not know if you know this--I met with the White House 
to figure out, with John Podesta, to figure out in a different 
environment, figure out, all right, we need to move forward. 
With our mission in mind, how do we use these moneys 
effectively to keep us in a stable rate?
    I need to commit long out. I have to put these at over 
1,000 facilities, right? So, and so forth. So, we came up with 
a plan how to use the infrastructure money that was agreeable 
and use the vehicle money.
    We will start receiving electric vehicles, the first of the 
commercial off-the-shelf, 40 transits, will start coming in 
December of this year or January, 10,000 over the next--they 
are left-hand drive, I need more right-hand drive. But those 
will get us going.
    Then, in the end of 1924, we'll start seeing--the end of 
1924, but 1925, 1926, and 1927, 20,000 a year on the NGDVs, all 
electric. Our first 15,000 will be ICE vehicles, which will 
come in toward the end of this year and into next. But then it 
is all, it is 100 percent electric vehicles.
    On the infrastructure, I already have it underway. We have 
close to 100 sites that will take about 100 vehicles each, and 
it is our old plants, our old plants that were closed down. You 
have the old postal family, you know, the old plants that were 
closed down. What they have, they already have 5,000 amps in 
them already and big parking lots with VMFs. And we are 
reopening up, retooling, and putting the money in to create 
the--put the charging stations in. I already ordered 14,000 
charging stations. We have them in stock at Topeka in case 
there is a supply chain crunch.
    So, we are moving out, and those 66,000, as they come off 
the line, we are going to have homes for them, and we are going 
to put them in where the carriers are. It might be--I have a 
parking lot for the first 1,000 in case the whole 
infrastructure is not ready, but I have a new team on it that 
has aggregated all the different functionality, and we are 
going to really lead the Nation in this rollout. And it is 
pretty exciting to be part of.
    Mr. Lynch. That is great. Well, one thing I would just want 
to say at the end--my time is almost up here. The pattern of 
use for the postal vehicles, you know, you charge overnight, 
right, and then you roll out in the morning. And for the 
balance of the day until those vehicles come back, you have got 
open charging stations. And I just want you to think about 
whether the public might be able to have access to those 
stations, those charging stations if it did not interfere with 
the postal operations. It might be a great benefit to the 
general community in which you are located.
    Mr. DeJoy. So, the--you know, we have discussed that. I 
know you have been interested, and other members here, in the 
type of device and where it is located and when we charge. But 
I think the point is, as I was saying earlier with regards to 
Congresswoman Norton, we have an infrastructure. Whether it 
requires a different type of charging station, if there is a--
this is a way that we can, you know, be more present in the 
community, we will take a look at that. But we first got to get 
our thing going----
    Mr. Lynch. Right, right.
    Mr. DeJoy [continuing]. Because this is a monumental task 
that we are undertaking right now.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you.
    And thank you for your courtesy, Mr. Chairman. I yield 
back. Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you 
very much.
    The distinguished gentleman, my friend from Louisiana, Mr. 
Higgins, is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Postmaster General DeJoy, we have met many times. It 
occurred to me, I was looking at when you were sworn in, and 
this must have been the longest three years of your life.
    Mr. DeJoy. I was born in Brooklyn, so that was long, too.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Higgins. I think you have earned an epitaph said, 
``This guy never quit.'' You have hung in there, but I have to 
say, some of the changes, I realize that you are dealing with 
quite a complex machine. But some of the changes really are 
beyond from a perspective of commonsense. They are beyond 
understanding.
    Like moving, shifting mail to your major hubs. Looking at 
it on a map, and so I guess it looks like a good idea from that 
perspective. But when you get down to the reality of taking a 
piece of mail that is scheduled to be delivered half a mile 
away from a post office and sending that mail 100 miles away to 
a hub to have it distributed to come back, these are the kind 
of things that when they are pointed out, they make no sense. 
But I have to say that I believe that, from my perspective, 
your biggest problem is regulations. You have been regulated to 
death.
    And let me point out regarding money, in 1980, a stamp was 
18 cents. It is 63 cents now. So, you have gone up 45 cents for 
a stamp. But in 1980, America's total debt was $1 trillion. It 
is $32 trillion now. So, Congress is in no position to look at 
the Post Office and say your rates have gone up too much. You 
are receiving a tremendous amount of American treasure through 
direct budgeting and appropriation, but it seems to me that 
your problems come from regulation.
    So, I ask you candidly if you had the regulatory 
requirements of 1980 and the rates and budget of 2023, how fast 
could you fix your problems?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, sir--and one quick point on the logistics 
behind moving the mail is--has to deal with volume aggregation 
and so forth. So that is why that process----
    Mr. Higgins. But setting that aside, Mr. DeJoy, you say you 
have a list, 1,000 pages of rules you have to follow, right?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes.
    Mr. Higgins. You were talking about why a mail carrier and 
he cannot deliver to a house right next to another house. I 
talked to an old guy, retired, he said--he said, Clay, used to 
be maps and mailboxes determined routes and deliveries. It was 
pretty much that simple.
    And obviously, if a new resident had established a mailbox 
at their home, they would just be added to the route in that 
area. It was a decision made at the branch. It did not require 
committee studies and tremendous regulatory review. It was just 
a commonsense decision. Someone moved into the neighborhood. 
They have a mailbox. They would get added to that route.
    If you had that kind of command and control, I would just 
think a guy like you could fix a lot of these problems to get 
the Post Office busting even. I have to ask you about electric 
vehicles, though.
    Mr. DeJoy. OK.
    Mr. Higgins. I was not going to bring it up, but my friend 
Mr. Lynch did. I think this may be the worst idea in the 
history of bad ideas. I think we are going to look back on 
this--I mean, utility vehicles must be robust and rugged. You 
have to have--obviously, a postal delivery vehicle goes through 
a lot. And as you observe American citizens that have electric 
cars, they are really casual-use vehicles.
    For instance, no professional hauler or tower--if you tow 
boats, for instance--it is not going to have an electric truck. 
You cannot go 70, 80 miles with it. So how do you intend to 
make that work in your most rugged environments across the 
postal system?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, that's a good point. Thank you for that 
question. It was one of the reasons why we came out with only a 
10 percent acquisition in the beginning, and it was a--right? 
But I think we have come to a point where we have carved out 
the right--we know every single route and what its 
applicability is, right?
    The durability of the vehicle is the same, and we know 
every route where and what type of conditions. And at the end 
of the day, from the way a vehicle works today, electric 
vehicle, and what our route system is all over the--up to 
Alaska and everything, we would never get--only about 70 
percent of them would be--we would only get to about 70 percent 
of the routes. And then there is different--different levels of 
return on electric vehicles.
    That 66,000 that we are moving in right now, we got the 
sweet spot of sweet spots in terms of where they are going to 
go, in terms of where they are going to be resident in these 
facilities, and I think it is going to work--I mean, I did not 
come in waving electric--you know, but----
    Mr. Higgins. That makes sense.
    Mr. DeJoy [continuing]. I think we are in a good place.
    Mr. Higgins. That makes sense. Mr. DeJoy, my time has 
expired. Thank you for your service.
    Mr. DeJoy. OK.
    Mr. Higgins. Mr. Chairman, I yield.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time. Thank you 
very much.
    The gentlewoman from Dallas, Texas, Ms. Crockett, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
    Today's hearing is one of those moments where both sides of 
the aisle want to come together and figure out what we can do 
to fix the problems that exist within the Postal Service. And 
so, I want to be clear that I support the Postal Service.
    I have talked a lot about my mom because she currently 
works for the IRS. But when I was a little girl, she worked at 
the post office, and so she got her introduction into Federal 
service at the post office. She worked as a part-timer. She was 
a mail handler. She worked her way up and ended up in HR. So, 
she kind of understands so many different levels of the post 
office.
    But as a Member of Congress, I get the calls about the 
concerns. And so, I want to just kind of put some things into 
perspective really quickly. I remember when I was growing up, 
as a little girl I was taught how to write letters, something 
that I do not know is going on now in schools, but the 
difference was when I was growing up, we did not have the 
Internet. Not when I was a little girl.
    And so, it is my perception that once the Internet came 
along--because I know I stopped sending as many letters--people 
started using things like email instead. And what I feel as if 
is going on with the Post Office is a lack of agility to adapt 
to a changing environment.
    And so I am curious to know, and it is really to follow up 
a little bit more on what Chairman Comer was asking about, is 
as we are thinking about the future of the Post Office, what 
are the out of the box thoughts that we have as we are looking 
at the fact that we didn't have the Internet before, which 
meant that every time you wanted to put something in writing to 
someone, you literally were either trying to do a telegram, a 
fax, or you were actually just sending a letter. And I think 
the preference was to send letters, right? But as you have 
acknowledged, that is not where the bread and butter is for the 
Post Office.
    As someone who also lived in east Texas, which is a little 
bit more rural than Dallas, I understand how thinly stretched 
you all are. But what are your thoughts? I mean, and when I am 
asking this, I am asking about, I do not know if there has been 
thoughts about the potential of drones or whatever technologies 
may be available, which then would not only reduce the carbon 
footprint but also would make sure that you are not needing the 
level of staff that is necessary to kind of do some of those 
routes.
    I did have a chance to sit down with the postmaster in my 
area to talk about some of these things. He has talked about 
the difficulties that he has had with hiring. He has talked 
about some of the things that have been brought up as it 
relates to the crime that has happened with a lot of postal 
workers. And so, I am curious about that.
    And also, and finally, I will kind of end on this note and 
allow you to kind of elaborate on your thoughts. But in my 
district, UPS, I believe it is--they are going to get me if I 
am wrong--but they are now doing autonomous vehicle testings in 
a route. And so, I know that those that I would consider to be 
competitors of the Post Office seemingly are already, you know, 
50 years ahead of us in kind of like what they are doing.
    And so, if we are going to be, say, the preferred provider 
as it relates to packages, like are you looking at what the 
competition is doing as it relates to FedEx and UPS and trying 
to figure out how do we stay or even get kind of on the playing 
field with them? And I will allow you because I am just curious 
about the future.
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes. Well, thank you. Thank you for those 
thoughts.
    First, Congresswoman, we are about 15 years behind in every 
operating and modern-day technology and logistics thing that we 
do, and we have to--that is our bread--and we have to get our 
mainstream business working right, which is moving mail and 
packages across the country and delivering to the American 
people together. And there is a huge, huge benefit for us in 
terms of cost and revenue and a big benefit to the American 
people in terms of timely service into the rural communities 
and so on and so forth. That is job No. 1. We have a broken 
operating model and a broken business model.
    The second thing is, in terms of how do we reimagine our 
retail centers around the Nation that will be able to build on 
this increasing commerce. We will become, if we pull this off, 
an enabler of commerce, right, and things will get delivered 
that do not get delivered now because it is from the Postal 
Service. And there will continue to be a growth in home 
delivery, in e-commerce, and so on and so forth.
    And we are there. We are pursuing a number of different 
issues with that, and we are reorganizing our whole customer 
outreach, sales, and marketing groups to actually devise, start 
working on solutions for commercial business, for mailers, for 
communities, and so on and so forth. So, we need to start 
thinking like that as we are fixing, as we're mending this 
broken thing. And we are going to have some good ideas from 
that.
    Now there are a lot of changes I would love to make, and if 
I owned the place, I would make tomorrow, OK? But I do not own 
the place and----
    Ms. Crockett. I am out of time, but if you can just give me 
one because that is why we are having these hearings. Because 
if I have an opportunity to produce legislation, that is what I 
want to do.
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, yes. So, I would move faster is the first 
thing on everything that we are doing. I mean, the plan is 
baked. It is cooked. But we have a very, very large stakeholder 
group that has very--there is a lot of lot of interest in many 
things and have witnessed over 15 years what not moving--the 
consequence of not moving forward. So----
    Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much.
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    The distinguished gentleman from Arizona, the gentleman, my 
friend Mr. Biggs, is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thanks for being here today, Mr. Postmaster DeJoy. I 
appreciate the updates you have given us.
    In 2018, the Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention 
Act, or STOP Act, was signed into law. That law was intended to 
prevent the shipment of fentanyl and synthetic drugs into the 
U.S. through the mail by requiring advanced electronic data to 
be included on all inbound international packages shipped 
through the U.S. Postal Service. Private carriers have been 
required to carry this electronic tracking information as well 
since 2022.
    However, last year, some of our Senate colleagues wrote to 
your office and the CBP to express concerns about the issuance 
of an excessive number of waivers issued to countries beyond 
the scope intended by the law. And the GAO report from May of 
last year, indicates that from Fiscal Year 2016 to 2021, mail 
and automobiles were the two top conveyance types used for 
drugs that were seized. In fact, the data in the report suggest 
that CBP components made more than 225,000 drug seizures 
concealed in mail parcels over this time period, and I would 
like to submit that report for the record, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Sessions. Without objection, it will be entered in the 
record.
    Mr. Biggs. And so, I am wondering if you can provide this 
Committee with an update on the implementation of the STOP Act?
    Mr. DeJoy. Thank you, sir. And I do not know if you 
noticed, but I had many, many interactions with Senator 
Portman, who was a strong advocate of the STOP Act, and we 
actually was very much involved in the AED measurements, the 
AED sampling. That is the electronic advanced notice----
    Mr. Biggs. So, Postmaster DeJoy, we just have a short 
period of time. I have other questions. So, can you be real 
specific about the implementation?
    Mr. DeJoy. The implementation--from the Postal Service 
standpoint, we implement what the State Department and CBP tell 
us to do, and we have specific operating requirements. Right 
now, it is about 85--I think it is 85 percent compliance with 
AED. But we brought on just last year, I think, recently--I do 
not know if it was last year--27 new countries.
    And every time we bring on new countries, we--they are 
allowed a fragment, a steppingstone compliance methodology, and 
that brings the overall average down. Many of----
    Mr. Biggs. So, what is the number of waivers to countries 
at this point?
    Mr. DeJoy. I mean, according to the law, there is a lot. I 
think almost everybody would be on a waiver right now, you 
know? So----
    Mr. Biggs. Be still my heart.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Biggs. So, what is the total amount of drugs concealed 
through mail parcels last Fiscal Year that you interdicted, 
that were interdicted?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, I had--I just had--but we track it. 
Fentanyl is probably up 30 percent from--and I'm talking about 
overall----
    Mr. Biggs. Can you get us specific numbers?
    Mr. DeJoy. I can get you that. I have a whole list, you 
know, marijuana, fentanyl, everything.
    Mr. Biggs. Do you know if there is any--well, I mean, I do 
not know this. But you said basically every country has a 
waiver. And so, the question I was going to ask you is any 
inbound mail coming from countries who have a waiver of STOP 
Act AED requirements, sounds like all of them have some kind of 
waiver. Is that what you said?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, if you read the STOP Act, we are supposed 
to have 100 percent compliance.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes.
    Mr. DeJoy. You know, there's not 100 percent compliance. 
So, we have different statistical sampling methods and so 
forth.
    Mr. Biggs. All right. Can you--so I'm hoping that maybe you 
can get me some specific data?
    Mr. DeJoy. I'll give you very detailed information on it.
    Mr. Biggs. All right. And then I, along with everyone else, 
will tell you that I have got a couple of local issues, 
specific. So maybe someone on your team can get together with 
me?
    Mr. DeJoy. Absolutely.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Thanks for being here, Postmaster. 
And I yield back.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    The Member, Ms. Lee, is recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Delivering for America plan, particularly the part 
about the consolidation of sorting and delivery centers, is 
intended to improve postal performance and finances. These 
changes will most certainly have major effects on all our local 
communities, and postal workers have raised concerns about 
those impacts. But are those concerns being heard by 
leadership?
    Section 301 of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement 
Act requires the Postal Service to engage and share data with 
these communities and stakeholders prior to implementing a 
realignment or consolidation plan. Mr. DeJoy, how did the 
Postal Service comply with this community engagement 
requirement prior to the release of the DFA, particularly about 
the restructuring of the facilities?
    Mr. DeJoy. We made the determination that we complied with 
every aspect of the law and regulations with regard to the 
plan, as we roll it out. The plan is ideas, and as we move 
forward, we communicate. We have had--I cannot tell you the 
amount of communications that we have had with the Congress, 
with other stakeholders. So far, we feel very comfortable in 
terms of what we did.
    Ms. Lee. In fact, the Postal Regulatory Commission recently 
opened a formal public inquiry into the Delivering for America 
plan to get more transparency and learn more about the impacts 
on the postal community. Yet the Postal Service recently filed 
an objection to this inquiry and requested it be withdrawn.
    Mr. DeJoy, why is the Postal Service objecting to this 
inquiry meant to make sure you actually engage with your 
stakeholders and customers?
    Mr. DeJoy. We engage with our stakeholders. We feel it is 
our position that the Postal Regulatory Commission has 
overstepped their authority, and we are an independent 
organization, and we have--we are charged with the mission of 
saving the organization, not the Postal Regulatory Commission. 
The Postal Regulatory Commission sat over and watched the 
destruction of the organization over the last 15 years and 
actively participated in the destruction of the organization 
over the last 15 years.
    What we are trying to do is save the organization. I--what 
goes on, why they do the things they do, I am yet to figure 
out, and I'm a pretty smart guy.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you for that.
    If your objection is dismissed, will you commit to 
participating in stakeholder forums and pledge not to take any 
further steps to block or delay such a forum?
    Mr. DeJoy. I did not hear the full question, but I am--we 
have communicated extensively and will communicate extensively 
to all stakeholders with regard to the reasonable amount of 
description one can give in taking on and doing a massive 
change that is done. At the end of the day, we are not 
affecting service. We are not going to affect service. Service 
will continue. Service is better now.
    And it is because of the things that we have done within 
the plan. We will reach all 165 million addresses we are 
supposed to do. We will meet the service requirements, and so 
forth. We just have to fix the chaos that exists within it that 
was established over the last 15 years.
    Ms. Lee. You have touted that the DFA has already reduced 
projected losses for the decade by more than half. Yet the 
Postal Service has already lost $2.1 billion in 2023. That is 
75 percent more than expected by this point. How do you explain 
this complete contradiction in numbers?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, a couple of ways. No. 1, in our plan, there 
is $3 billion in this year's budget, full year $3 billion of 
CSRS reform that was planned that we have not--it is an 
administrative order that we are advocating to get. That has 
not happened.
    We had almost $2 billion in inflation, which was not 
expected, in excess of our projected inflation. The way we--we 
bill in the future, we incur the cost currently. And then there 
were additional costs that I kept in place so as we 
transitioned, we did not impact service. And that was-- that is 
going to be about another $1.5 billion.
    So, we are not giving up on the long term. It was a big 
task. The place a little more broke than we figured out in the 
first five months of being here. But we are very, very 
committed to getting this back on track and moving forward.
    And that is why interference from the Postal Regulatory 
Commission is not helpful. It is going to put this whole plan 
in jeopardy.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you for your comments.
    I wanted to talk about electrifying, the effort to 
electrify the fleet. But with time in mind, I will close and 
say this. The Postal Service delivers for the Nation every day. 
To be effective at this essential mission, it needs to get 
feedback from its customers and stakeholders at every possible 
juncture.
    Cutting corners to save time or money often has long-term 
harmful effects like erosion of trust and loss of customers. It 
is baffling to me that such a cornerstone of our society has 
become so politicized and controversial. The Postal Service 
needs to improve transparency and do better for the American 
people.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    The gentlewoman from Colorado, Mrs. Boebert, is recognized 
for five minutes.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Postmaster General DeJoy, you testified that 98 percent of 
the Nation's population is receiving their mail and packages in 
three days or less. What percentage of mail is delivered on 
time in rural areas in America?
    Mr. DeJoy. I would say our overall standard of first-class 
mail is--to the service standards is about 92, 93 percent right 
now. Marketing mail is 95 percent.
    Mrs. Boebert. OK. Those are pretty high numbers. So, I 
asked that because I have heard from my constituents over the 
past few years in rural America who are receiving terrible 
service from the Postal Service. I know a lot of issues have 
been brought up today, and we are working to get solutions with 
you. So, thank you so much for being here and providing answers 
so we can try to work through this.
    But the struggles that we are seeing are veterans and 
seniors not receiving important prescriptions in a timely 
manner. Postal positions have been unfilled for long periods of 
time. Local post offices have been closed or had extremely 
limited hours. Packages have been seen piling up in lobbies. 
Some people did not receive a single piece of mail for three 
weeks in my district. Wait times exceed an hour in some places. 
And to make matters worse, extremely poor customer service is 
something that I am hearing a lot of.
    Colorado City is south of Pueblo, went out with--went 
without its contract post office for approximately six weeks 
after the contractor who ran it quit because the Postal Service 
was not honoring his contracts. People in my district literally 
had to drive 30 minutes to Pueblo to get their mail, and just, 
I think, you would agree that these things are unacceptable.
    Now Postmaster General DeJoy, an estimated 15,000 rural 
pharmacies were forced out of the Department of Defense Health 
Agency's Cigna Express Scripts reimbursement plan, and this has 
caused rural veterans across Colorado's Third District to rely 
solely on the Postal Service to receive their prescriptions. 
This has caused veterans to go without these prescriptions, 
most of which are necessary for the quality of their life, for 
upwards of weeks and due to the delay in this delivery.
    Now this is not only happening in our rural areas, such as 
Cortez, Las Animas, Del Norte, Meeker, Rangely, and just about 
all of these mountain communities, but it is even happening in 
major populated areas such as Grand Junction, Colorado, and in 
Pueblo, as mentioned. What steps are you taking to ensure that 
postal service no longer leaves our veterans going weeks 
without important quality of life prescriptions?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, specifically in Colorado, when I was made 
aware of the issue--and I met with your two Senators--we put--
and we are doing this in all the areas, making--as I said----
    Mrs. Boebert. I am sorry. When did you meet with the 
Senators? If that is something you could recall.
    Mr. DeJoy. A month ago, two months ago.
    Mrs. Boebert. OK. OK.
    Mr. DeJoy. But we--it really was from the January and 
beginning of February activity that was out there that--and 
we--I put a SWAT team out into the area, and we put 12 or 13, 
moved 12 or 13 carriers up. We re-established contracts, 
highway contracts in the area. We brought in--put additional 
management in, I think, eight or nine different locations 
around the mountain area, and we got the service flowing back 
on, on time.
    And as I said earlier, there is a lot of damage that was 
done. And then coming through the pandemic, these remote retail 
areas are the ones that are the longest for us to get back and 
the toughest for us to get back into stable operating 
condition. And we are working on it.
    I think most of those areas in Colorado are significantly 
better than they were before. I watch the days to deliver, 
missed mail to delivery points, and so forth. So, I think--have 
you had any recent----
    Mrs. Boebert. Yes. So, we have had ongoing issues that have 
been brought to our attention, and specifically, there was a 
period in time in October 2021, when I reached to you 
personally, and I was denied a meeting. We could not get----
    Mr. DeJoy. You reached to me?
    Mrs. Boebert. Yes. Yes, I did. And this was just about the 
unacceptable service that we were seeing in La Veta at a post 
office in my district, and a government relations 
representative from Washington, DC, responded and said a lie, 
stating that staffing issues were not impacting operating 
hours. And they absolutely were.
    So, I am glad that you reached out to the Senators and 
spoke to them. I am grateful to hear what you are expressing to 
this Committee about the commitments that you are making to 
address these issues, and I hope to work with you personally in 
the future and with your staff as well because this is 
something that is very important to all Americans.
    So, thank you so much for your time. And I yield back.
    Mr. DeJoy. Thank you.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Barragan, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Postmaster General, you are a popular guy. I asked for 
a call from you as well and was denied that request. But let me 
say thank you for being here and for answering questions.
    And I want to thank you for in your testimony mentioning 
the men and women of the Postal Service, and you say we owe 
them our best efforts and a solid plan to address the problems 
of the past and to chart a course. Your testimony also attaches 
a second-year report, Delivering for America, and on page 11 of 
that, it says--and I am quoting--``The well-being of our 
635,000 employees is at the heart of Delivering for America. We 
are investing in both our employees and the facilities they 
work in.''
    I cannot agree more. I am a huge fan of the Post Office and 
the men and the women who provide service and who go in day in 
and day out to deliver mail.
    Mr. DeJoy, do you ever visit post offices, yes or no?
    Mr. DeJoy. Frequently.
    Ms. Barragan. Frequently. Have you ever visited any of the 
USPS international service centers?
    Mr. DeJoy. I have.
    Ms. Barragan. Have you, by any chance, ever visited one in 
Carson, California?
    Mr. DeJoy. No, but I'm aware of it. Actually, I did visit 
Carson--before it was an international center.
    Ms. Barragan. OK. Do you believe that employees should have 
to work in a facility that is below 30 degrees?
    Mr. DeJoy. Nope.
    Ms. Barragan. And do you believe that employees should have 
to work in a facility that is close to 100 degrees?
    Mr. DeJoy. Nope.
    Ms. Barragan. I have to agree with you. I do not think 
these are suitable working conditions, and OSHA, even though 
they do not have a specific number, they have a temperature 
range, and it is far well away from those. Let me tell you 
about working conditions in that facility that happens to be in 
my congressional district. I wrote you a letter about this, 
which I asked for a phone call about.
    I will say your staff, somebody did respond back. Now these 
are working conditions that employees of the U.S. Postal 
Service International Service Center in Carson, California, 
have been faced with. From December 2022 through March 2023, 
the employees were working in this facility that registered 
temperatures as low as 28 degrees when it was cold, and the 
building there was intended to be a warehouse, not really a 
processing center. It does not have any kind of HVAC system, 
and the electrical capacity there is not sufficient to run 
enough heaters to regulate the temperatures in the building.
    I, myself, went to visit it and joined the workers, the men 
and the women, who were out protesting against these 
unacceptable, unsuitable conditions. And so now that you have 
been made aware of this, what are you committed to try to do to 
fix this?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, Congresswoman, we have plenty of facilities 
like that around the country that have conditions that need to 
be addressed, and we are out addressing them. That is----
    Ms. Barragan. Are you saying you have a lot of facilities 
where workers are working in unsafe conditions?
    Mr. DeJoy. There are different types of conditions. There 
are different types of conditions that they will make workplace 
activities, produce the result we do not want in terms of 
productivity and the employee experience. And that is a big 
part of what the Delivering for America plan is about.
    And we, in that particular facility, it was part of a 
process where we leased it for a short term. We are getting out 
of the building. We are going to close that building down and 
consolidate it into our Los Angeles facility.
    But we have what we have, and when conditions happen, and 
we have people working there and mail flowing, we're not always 
able to respond to these types of conditions the way we would 
like to. That is the aggregation----
    Ms. Barragan. Well, Mr. DeJoy----
    Mr. DeJoy. That is an accumulation of 15 years' worth of 
neglect that I cannot fix in two years.
    Ms. Barragan [continuing]. First of all, it is not really 
15 years of neglect.
    Mr. DeJoy. It is.
    Ms. Barragan. And I will tell you why. Because this was a 
five-year lease. So, it has not been 15 years, and when they 
entered the lease, they should have said, hey, there needs to 
be safe working conditions here. And you basically have just 
said, hey, there is unsafe working conditions, and that is what 
it is.
    That should not be the response of our country to the men 
and the women who need to deliver and who do deliver for 
America. The response really should be, and I hoping your 
response was going to be, I am going to see how quickly we can 
get the workers out of these unsafe conditions because nobody 
should be working in degrees that is 30 degrees.
    Mr. DeJoy. That is very unfair. That is, in fact, what I 
have been doing. That is a very unfair accusation.
    Ms. Barragan. You just said it is what it is.
    Mr. DeJoy. I was explaining the status of the condition of 
the organization when I arrived here and what we have been 
trying to do over the last two years. And we recognize we have 
facility issues, and we recognize that that is a facility 
issue, and we are going to be moving it. But it is a big place 
with a lot of people and no money, right? And we are trying to 
fix it.
    Ms. Barragan. Well, I hope that you will look at it more 
closely to get a quicker resolution.
    Thank you. With that I yield back.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    Without objection, Congressman LaTurner of Kansas is going 
to be waved onto the subcommittee for the purpose of 
questioning witnesses at today's hearing. The distinguished 
gentleman from Kansas is recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your 
indulgence.
    Postmaster DeJoy, thank you for being here today.
    Bringing the Postal Service back into the black is a 
tremendous undertaking, and trust me when I tell you that every 
Member of this Committee wishes you all the success in your 
endeavors to do that. However, I do have some concerns with the 
operations side of the USPS and would appreciate your 
clarification and insight on a few things.
    When we passed the Postal Service Reform Act just over a 
year ago, we included a requirement for the Postal Regulatory 
Commission, in consultation with the Inspector General, to 
conduct a study of the causes of inefficiencies in the 
processing of flats. The PRC report was recently issued, and 
now the ball shifts to you to develop and implement a plan to 
remedy the inefficiencies. What are you currently considering 
to address these problems?
    Mr. DeJoy. So we--my engineering staff is studying the 
recommendations. We most likely will not agree with what it is 
that their study identified. There seemed to be some blatant 
misses in terms of what their assumptions are. But we will go 
through that. We are going to get a response.
    And overall, we are trying to----
    Mr. LaTurner. Can you specifically say what you agree with 
or disagree with?
    Mr. DeJoy. I cannot. I cannot. But there is some basic math 
was--or relationships were not accurate, just like their 
pricing over the last 15 years.
    Mr. LaTurner. Do you believe a moderation mechanism should 
be in place to ensure rate increases do not result in volume 
reduction, at least while you work on the flats processing 
issue?
    Mr. DeJoy. I think that is not practical at all.
    Mr. LaTurner. You do not think that is practical?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes. No, I do not think it will fix anything, 
and--so, no. The answer is no. I think we need to continue--if 
the pricing methodology that is in place today, OK, was in 
place for the last 15 years, we would be $50 billion to $70 
billion ahead.
    So far, I have raised prices $5 billion, $6 billion, of 
which 80 percent of that money has been the inflationary 
environment that we have today. So, the discussion about price, 
which is what got us into this situation that we are today, is 
just like a nonstarter with me. I have been very, very--very, 
very purposeful in speaking to the mailers about what I feel 
the issue is and very purposeful in speaking with the board, 
and the board recognizes this.
    And the mail volume declines have gone on for 10 years, and 
by us subsidizing, subsidizing industry who is--where is where 
most of these complaints are coming for is not going to do 
anything for them or do anything for the Postal Service.
    Mr. LaTurner. One of the biggest problems for decades for a 
variety of factors, controllable or otherwise, has been that 
the USPS is a relatively high-cost organization. Is there 
anything you think should be done to reduce costs that you are 
currently considering that you are currently constrained from 
doing? Is there anything you are considering that you are 
constrained from doing?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes, there is a lot of things I'm constrained 
from doing. I went to change a two-hour entry time on 
periodicals so I could aggregate mail moves, movement of mail, 
and I got stopped by the Postal Regulatory Commission. Yet, for 
the last 10 years, they watched the destruction of the 
organization and did not do a thing.
    So, there is plenty of things. I could move a lot faster; I 
could move a lot faster in terms of--but the Delivering for 
America plan has identified specific things that we are trying 
to do with regard to our network and delivery and sales and 
integrating the movement of mail and packages, and price is 
part of it. Raising prices on market dominant mail is part of 
the process. We have had a defective pricing model for 15 
years, and we need to move--we need to move beyond that.
    Mr. LaTurner. You mentioned periodicals. Since August 2021, 
periodicals' rates have increased more than 32 percent, well 
above inflation, as other costs continue to rise--paper, ink, 
transportation, and the like. My constituents tell me these 
increases are not sustainable.
    Periodical volumes have declined 32 percent since 2018. 
There is no other option for delivery, leaving these businesses 
to cut staff or close their doors. Would you agree that we must 
look for solutions other than raising rates?
    Mr. DeJoy. And we are looking for solutions to get the 
organization to where it is generating a profit. But for the 
last 19 years, we have stapled--today, we tape a quarter to 
every periodical we deliver. You know what that means? We lose 
$500 million delivering periodicals.
    So, I do not--I mean, a lot of that is because we have had 
a defective pricing model for 15 years. Now we do have costs. I 
tell everybody I know we have inefficiencies, and that is what 
we are trying to drive out. And we are driving billions of 
dollars out of the organization, and we will continue to 
accelerate that cost reduction as we move forward.
    Mr. LaTurner. Do you understand the very real issues that 
this is causing for some of these companies that are struggling 
with rising inflation, the rising cost of other things? Are you 
sensitive to the idea rather than just--because it sounds like 
what you are saying is stop whining. We had a bad pricing model 
for 15 years. There is a little more to it than that.
    Mr. DeJoy. I'm not saying that. I'm facing the realities, 
sir. I'm facing the realities of what existed here, what was 
allowed to exist for 15 years and the consequence that was 
dealt to the organization that we are trying to fix right now. 
And price is part of it.
    If you had a defective pricing model for 15 years, what 
would you propose is part of a tool in the toolbox to try and 
fix that? You get new authority. I have a regulator. They 
allow--they allow the prices that we charge based on whatever 
it is that they look up in that room, OK? And we are using that 
authority.
    And most of that has to come--comes from inflation, right? 
And you understand the inflationary impacts that we have had 
over the last couple of years. So, what are we supposed to do 
as an organization that's losing money, trying to dig out of a 
hole? Suck it up and continue to subsidize the industry? That 
is not what I was brought here to do.
    Mr. LaTurner. Just I wish you would be more mindful of the 
businesses that this is----
    Mr. DeJoy. I am very mindful.
    Mr. LaTurner [continuing]. That this is impacting.
    I am over time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    The distinguished gentleman from California, Mr. Garcia, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And Mr. DeJoy, thank you for being here, and I especially 
want to thank all the women and men of the Postal Service, the 
incredible folks. I know a lot of them in my community back 
home. And our Postal Service, of course, we know, should 
connect all of us. It does incredible service for so many, 
especially folks that are seniors that might be at home or have 
special needs, and the Postal Service is critical, we know, for 
these folks especially.
    Now we know that, unfortunately, for many Americans living 
in poverty, especially those without stable housing, mail and 
the delivery of mail is very difficult. So many rely on the 
public benefits for survival, for timely distribution of 
medication, of information. So, we want to continue to improve 
our service whenever we can.
    Many public benefits require a response within a limited 
timeframe. We know in California recipients of services like 
CalWORKS, Medi-Cal, CalFresh, only have 10 days to respond, and 
not receiving mail in a timely manner is sometimes the reason 
why a lot of folks lose SNAP or their food benefits. And so 
that delivery of mail is really critical.
    For people who cannot afford access to a P.O. box, the 
general delivery service is the only way that they can access 
essential mail, including food benefits, health insurance, 
housing vouchers, and more. Now the issue of mail accessibility 
is especially critical, and there is two issues that I wanted 
to bring up to you, sir, that you would work with our office to 
help address.
    We know that there are barriers to voting 
disproportionately for folks that are unhoused, that might be 
immigrants, or folks that may not have direct access to mail. 
And I have seen this firsthand in the city of Avalon. And 
Avalon is a city in California that is on Catalina Island, a 
very small community. And like other rural communities across 
the country, they do not have home delivery.
    This community operates on a P.O. box system, which has led 
to Avalon residents struggling for years to access mail-in 
ballots and to be accurately counted on U.S. Census forms. I 
just wanted to flag this one issue. Mr. DeJoy, do you and your 
team agree to help work with us on these Avalon concerns that 
the council there, the community, this is their top issue with 
mail delivery. They are having concerns. So, I wanted to flag 
that for you.
    It is a small island community off the coast of California. 
It is a beautiful community, and they have been asking me to 
really push on this issue. So, if I can have your commitment on 
that, that would be great.
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes, well, my government relations people will 
reach out to you.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir.
    And then the second issue, Mr. DeJoy, that I want to talk 
about, continue about accessibility. There is a really critical 
issue in the city of Maywood. Now Maywood is a small community 
in California. It is the most dense city west of the 
Mississippi. It is a largely immigrant population, many Spanish 
speakers. But again, if you can imagine the most dense city 
west of the Mississippi, this is the small community that I am 
discussing.
    This is their number-one concern whenever I talk to the 
city council or meet anyone in the community, that post office, 
as you can see behind me--we will get you a photo--what is 
missing is an ADA-compliant ramp to allow wheelchair access. 
And so, what has been shown to me on multiple occasions is 
seniors and folks in wheelchairs, they cannot access the post 
office.
    And now the building has stood for nearly a century, it has 
remained ADA-noncompliant since the bill was passed into law. 
It has been 25 years, and despite continued outreach from the 
city of Maywood to USPS. Now we understand, in conversations 
with your staff--and I do appreciate their work, by the way--in 
conversations with your staff, they said, well, there are other 
post offices that are near me--none, of course, in the city--
that they could use that have a ramp. That is not an acceptable 
answer for the folks in this community. These are seniors. 
These are folks in wheelchairs. These are folks that have a 
hard time moving, and they cannot get up these steps.
    They, physically, even seniors cannot physically, many of 
them, get up these steps. And this is also a community that is 
underserved. And so, I just wanted you to know that within the 
city of Maywood, this is their number-one request of me as 
their Federal representative is can you please get us an ADA 
ramp for the post office.
    So, I just wanted you to know that. And if, Mr. DeJoy, I 
can have just a commitment? Your team, essentially, the 
impression we have received has been we cannot help, and we are 
compliant within the law. I do not find that to be an 
acceptable answer.
    Mr. DeJoy?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes. So, I will--we will take a look at it. I 
mean, it was a good pitch. So, we'll take a look.
    Mr. Garcia. I figured since you would be here, I would give 
you this pitch for these folks. And I will tell you that they 
will be very excited if you are able to help them.
    Last, just real briefly, I know that we have a longstanding 
commitment with our veterans. The Post Office has traditionally 
had a great relationship with veterans. I know that we have 
seen a reduction of veterans within Postal Service work. Did 
you want to maybe note why that is, and then what is our 
longstanding commitment to veterans in this country as it 
relates to USPS?
    Mr. DeJoy. So, I mean, historically, I mean, veterans have 
been a significant part of our work force. The--and it still is 
a significant part of our work force. I believe we have over 
70,000 veterans in the work force.
    This type of--the economy is changing. Society is changing. 
The number of veterans is changing, and the type of work is 
different. We are trying to find ways to increase the 
attraction to being a postal worker, and it starts with making 
the improvements in the workplace that we are heading down and 
being more vibrant in terms of our commercial application, 
growing in the business, and being more creative in terms of 
our services.
    And I think, you know, people want to be associated with a 
winner and so on, and we have had a lot of hard time over the 
last 15 years. So, it has not been, you know, a pleasant place 
to work, and we are trying to change that.
    And I think, I know we have already had a consequence, a 
positive consequence on it. There is still so much more to do. 
We will continue to do it, and hopefully, we will attract all 
sorts of different people.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, sir. I know I am out of time. So, I 
yield back, and I appreciate your answers and your commitment 
just to help. Thanks.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentleman yields back his time.
    The gentlewoman from South Carolina, Ms. Mace, is 
recognized for five minutes.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And Mr. DeJoy, thank you for being here with us this 
afternoon and answering our questions very directly, even some 
of them that have been very tough.
    I represent South Carolina's First congressional District. 
We are the 10th fastest-growing district in the Nation. We have 
seen explosive growth over the last couple of years, and in 
fact, when tourists come to Charleston or Hilton Head Island, 
South Carolina, they never want to leave. And so, they buy 
houses and they stay there, which is great for our economy, but 
also presents certain challenges in regards to postal service 
and deliveries.
    So, I have a few questions that I would like to ask on 
behalf of my constituents. We receive complaints about mail 
delivery almost on the daily from constituents, and we sort of 
feel helpless at this point on being able to get them their 
packages and everything. So, my questions are really just 
specific to our demands in our district.
    Despite the significant population growth in the First 
congressional District, there has been a lack of new post 
offices or additional postal routes being established to 
accommodate our growth. And so, I would like to ask you today 
should the Postal Service adapt to changing demographic 
circumstances, yes or no?
    Mr. DeJoy. Yes.
    Ms. Mace. OK. Thank you.
    A postal worker from the Low Country--that is our nickname 
for the area that I represent--called our office recently to 
say they are not able to keep new hires onboard because their 
routes are impossible to complete in the allotted time. And 
even if they do complete them, it is often long after dark, 
which has become a safety issue and a safety concern and can 
result in increased postal crime and violence, which you know 
is on the rise.
    So, I would like to ask you if you think it is appropriate 
for postal workers to have to work or take on those kinds of 
risks, yes or no?
    Mr. DeJoy. No.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you.
    My constituents' medications, we have heard stories from 
constituents of their medications crystalizing in the mail, 
becoming useless due to being left in warehouses, trucks, or in 
the wrong mailbox. Is it standard Postal Service policy for the 
elderly not to get their medicine on time, and when they 
finally do get it, for it to have gone bad, yes or no?
    Mr. DeJoy. No.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. Many of my constituents have called in 
complaining of incurring late fees on bills due to late mail, 
missing IRS refunds, missing sent payments. Is there any 
reimbursement or plan for action for our constituents who now 
have late fees on bills, bills that were missed because mail 
was delivered late or was lost?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, there is no action for reimbursement, but 
we are trying to improve mail service across the Nation.
    Ms. Mace. And what about for those who have to repurchase 
medication due to it being delivered late, is there--not being 
able to be delivered on time?
    Mr. DeJoy. There is no action to reimburse anyone.
    Ms. Mace. OK. In the last year, we sent a letter to a 
district manager to start a process to fix zip code lines in 
Goose Creek, South Carolina, my hometown, to create a new zip 
code for Cane Bay in our district. My constituents have wanted 
this for years. And Mayor Habib of Goose Creek asks me about it 
every time I see him, and to date, nothing has happened on the 
U.S. Postal Service side of things.
    So, I would like to know if you guys can get around to 
helping us so we can get mail delivered better, faster, more, 
particularly in this area on that front, or is it going to take 
an act of Congress? What have we got to do to fix it?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, I mean, zip codes are part of our 
operational process and strategy, and we just cannot add them 
whenever we want without looking at that. But we will take a 
look--we always review requests.
    Ms. Mace. And what is the criteria for getting--getting 
that done? What criteria do you all use in the Postal Service 
for determining new zip codes?
    Mr. DeJoy. I think we actually stopped issuing new zip 
codes a long time ago. So, I do not think there is a process.
    Ms. Mace. So, what do we do? I mean, this is a whole area. 
This is one of the most fastest-growing parts of our district. 
I mean, it is just explosive. We cannot keep them from stop 
building houses and mailboxes. So, what do we--what do we do?
    Mr. DeJoy. Well, so we--I will take a look at it. I mean, 
there's a lot of ways to solve for explosive areas than 
changing a zip code. There is route adjustments. There is 
facilities, as you request. I mean, we have--we are now looking 
at, part of our transition is to look at all our routes.
    We are going through a whole process of reevaluating all 
our route structures, looking at where all our delivery units 
are based, rolling out new facilities, accelerating the mail 
moving through the system, and trying to make--stabilize the 
work force and make everything and everybody happy. We are on 
that path.
    Ms. Mace. Yes. All right.
    Mr. DeJoy. So, I'll look at your area. I'll look at the 
Charleston area, and we will get--we will talk to you about it.
    Ms. Mace. Cane Bay. Just remember Cane Bay. That will be 
great.
    I want to thank you, Mr. DeJoy, for being with us today. It 
is our responsibility to hold the Postal Service accountable 
and ensure it fulfills its mission with the utmost efficiency, 
integrity, and care. Cane Bay.
    Thank you.
    Mr. DeJoy. Thank you.
    Ms. Mace. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Sessions. The gentlewoman yields back her time.
    We are almost there.
    Mr. DeJoy. OK.
    Mr. Sessions. The distinguished gentleman, the Ranking 
Member, would be recognized for any closing statement the 
gentleman would choose to make.
    Mr. Mfume. Yes, I have got a couple of quick statements, 
Mr. Chair.
    First, Representative Connolly, who we all referenced at 
the beginning of this meeting, is not here now. He is still 
dealing with the matter of the staff persons in his office that 
were attacked, but he did have three questions for you, Mr. 
DeJoy. And for the sake of time, I am not going to read them, 
but I would ask unanimous consent that they be entered into the 
record.
    Mr. Sessions. Without objection, they will be entered into 
the record.

    Mr. Mfume. And staff will make sure your staff gets a copy 
so that he might be able to get a response.
    The other thing is that I referenced, also, earlier at the 
beginning of our meeting, the letter that Mr. Connolly, myself, 
and the Ranking Member, Mr. Raskin, wrote that you obviously 
just got. And as you go through it, I want to call your 
attention to something that jumped out at me, and it goes back 
to something that Representative Raskin asked.
    There are--this letter deals primarily with safety of 
employees and trying to keep letter carriers and deliverers and 
everybody else safe from the crazies that are part of our 
society, and we reference the increases in the amount of theft, 
both of mail and these keys that allow persons to have access 
to cluster boxes and blue boxes and other things.
    But what just caught my attention earlier, is that the 
letter references a statement made by Frank Albergo, who is the 
national president of the Police Officers Association of the 
U.S. Postal Service. He did this before the Subcommittee on 
September 7 of last year. And while there are certain 
assertions, his conclusion, though, I found striking.
    He said the Postal Service must effectively utilize all of 
its resources to curb the plague of mail theft and to stop 
attacks on postal workers, and what I do know ``is that Mr. 
DeJoy has not done anything to rectify the problem.''
    Now this caught my attention after I re-read it because Mr. 
Raskin also asked the question about this association of police 
that you have oversight over. I think it is 600 or so. Then I 
heard you respond that you did not have statutory authority 
given by this Congress to direct and regulate those 
individuals.
    So, I do not--I am a little concerned because it found its 
way into our letter to you, and I do not know the gentleman 
that made this statement who is the head of that association. 
But if you do not have statutory authority to do what he says 
you are not doing, it seems to me that this statement ought to 
be dis--not disallowed, but not taken seriously within this 
letter. Because we are trying to get real answers. We are not 
just trying to throw blame and to throw people under the bus.
    So, if you would--thank you--if you would not pay attention 
to that one statement that is in this letter because it has 
nothing to do, in my opinion, with what we are trying to do. 
And now that I know that you do not have statutory authority to 
do what he is saying you did not do, it really does not make 
much sense.
    So, I want to correct the record on that, and we will, 
obviously, look forward to your response to the several things 
that we ask you about that you do have authority over.
    I want to thank you for being here. As I said when we 
began, this all started, we were all wearing masks. And there 
have been several persons on this Committee who talked about 
how they shouted at you, cursed at you, and almost threw things 
at you, but you are still here, we are still here, and we think 
that some sense of progress is being made.
    I think it would be fair to say that it is a tough, tough 
job with very little sympathy and a lot of regionalism because 
we are on the ground, and we hear what we hear from 
constituents. And so, we are obligated to, when we have an 
opportunity like this, to bring it before you.
    But you should know, as the Chairman said earlier, we are 
looking to work together to solve problems. And what you 
inherited was a mess, and there were several organizations in 
place that are part of the U.S. Postal Service that were 
witnesses. They just stood around and did not do anything. We 
are trying to do something. We want to be supportive. We will 
be critical when we have to be critical, but the bottom line is 
that we have got to keep making some sense of progress.
    So, I am going to yield back. I may have some additional 
questions later. If I do, I will transmit those in writing, 
particularly as relates to electric vehicles and what we do and 
how you reconfigure the assets that you have on the ground.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Mfume, thank you very much.
    The Postmaster General, I think, was what I would describe 
as professional. I believe that the interaction of this 
Subcommittee and our guests were well reasoned and balanced. We 
will work together on this side, Mr. Postmaster General, Mr. 
Mfume and I. We recognize, and I think you have never thought 
otherwise, that there is extreme interest in what you do. But 
we need to work, as I have said and as you have heard today, 
together. I think we need to do a better job on this side, and 
I know we will work well with you.
    I want to acknowledge the gentleman, one of our former 
colleagues, Mr. Sodrel from Indiana, former Congressman who has 
taken time to be here. Mr. Sodrel, like all of our witnesses 
and other guests that we have here, their attention to the 
details of what we are attempting to do to move this country 
forward, including the Postal Service, is greatly recognized 
and appreciated.
    I want to thank the distinguished gentleman for his time. 
Mr. Mfume and I, as soon as I bang down the gavel, want to come 
down and shake your hand and offer our thanks for your service 
to this great Nation.
    This now completes the Subcommittee hearing with the 
Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce 
with today's hearing.
    [Whereupon, at 1:04 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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